A former employee of the Blood Transfusion Service Board told the tribunal yesterday she felt undermined by one of her superiors at Pelican House and sought redress both internally and "through various external routes".
Ms Cecily Cunningham, a former principal biochemist with the BTSB, said the person who she felt undermined her was the late Mr Sean Hanratty, a former chief technical officer.
The tribunal has heard Mr Hanratty was responsible for documents relating to the dispatch of blood products to hospitals, which were shredded in 1993. A directive had been issued to staff in 1989 not to destroy them.
Ms Cunningham said it was Mr Hanratty who instructed her to begin heat-treating factor 9 in 1985. Heat-treatment was used to kill viruses and the tribunal is investigating whether it should have started earlier and if the form of heat-treatment was appropriate.
Her counsel, Mr George Birmingham SC, said Ms Cunningham's early years in the BTSB were very happy ones but there were "difficulties" in the 1980s. He did not want to go into these in any detail as the tribunal had enough matters to investigate.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr Gerard Durcan SC, said there were 37 staff meetings at Pelican House in 1985 and there was no reference to the problem of heat-treating factor 9 being discussed at any of them. Ms Cunningham had said they were worried heat would damage the product.
Heat-treatment began in August 1985 and the formula changed a number of times. In February 1988 Ms Cunningham was told to use a form patented by Travenol. It was described on a sheet of paper given to her by Mr Hanratty. "This was a particularly sensitive document. I remember the word confidential was written all over it," she said.
Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr Jim McCul lough, suggested to her that the formula used by Pelican House was not in fact used by Travenol at the time.
Ms Cunningham said Travenol might have been planning to change its treatment. "Maybe it still hadn't been approved. Maybe that was why `confidential' was written on it," she said.
One of the batches heat-treated with this formula was batch 9885 which has been identified as infecting a number of children with hepatitis C.
Ms Cunningham was also questioned about the different recall procedures used by the BTSB. In December 1985 a product called anti-D was recalled immediately by telephone when the BTSB became aware it might be contaminated with HIV.
In January 1986 when the board was ordered by the Department of Health to withdraw clotting agents issued before HIV screening, it sent letters to hospitals - which, the tribunal heard, did not comply with the Department's request. Ms Cunningham said there was a difference between the two situations, as with anti-D there was "a very definite problem".