The Irish Blood Transfusion Service, the successor to the BTSB, is to submit a supplementary affidavit to the Lindsay tribunal on financial matters in the coming weeks.
The Irish Times has learnt the agency is considering employing an independent consultant, rather than using one of its own staff, to compile the necessary information on the board's income, expenditure and contract arrangements during the 1980s.
The consultant would be given the task of interpreting the board's decisions during the period in light of Department of Health funding levels and possible financial gains from those decisions.
Dr Emer Lawlor, deputy medial director of the IBTS, reiterated under cross-examination yesterday that all such issues should be left over to another witness as she was not qualified to answer them.
She conceded her remarks on lack of funding from the Department during the period were merely "a matter of comment".
It is understood the IBTS had not initially intended to have another witness deal with financial matters. However, it became necessary after Dr Lawlor's cross-examination took some unexpected turns and a number of questions were raised which she was not in a position to answer.
Among the claims to be addressed in the supplementary affidavit was the suggestion that the BTSB disregarded safety advice on the use of US commercial blood products in the mid-1970s because it realised it could make money on their importation.
Another claim to be addressed was that the BTSB ended a project in 1984 which could have made it self-sufficient in blood products, and therefore reduced the risk of infection to haemophiliacs, because it was more cost-effective to choose an alternative method of production.
The IBTS witness will concentrate on the period up to Mr Ted Keyes becoming chief executive officer of the board in 1986, as Mr Keyes is available to give evidence on financial matters from then until his retirement in 1995.
