Blood donors were never told that the plasma from their voluntary donations would be sold to pharmaceutical companies to be manufactured into blood products, the tribunal heard.
The former chief executive of the Blood Transfusion Service Board, Mr Ted Keyes, accepted this was a commercial activity which yielded an annual profit to the board. He said the money was required to buy blood products for haemophiliacs, to develop services and to finance the growth of the BTSB.
Mr Keyes was asked by Mr John Trainor SC, for the Irish Haemophilia Society, about a letter he sent to the Department of Health in December 1986. In it, he said he believed it was essential for the well-being of the board that it be permitted to become involved in commercial activities. He wrote that stringent conditions could be laid down in relation to each such activity and an ethics committee could be considered in this respect.
Mr Keyes was asked what he meant when he wrote there could be concern about the board becoming involved in commercial activities. "I was saying that if we were going to go into that, we would have to handle it very carefully, communicate in some way with our donors, to make sure they at the end of the day were quite happy that we weren't doing things which they didn't like." Mr Trainor asked if donors were told their plasma was made into factor 8 as part of a commercial activity. "I specifically did not tell them but I think it was well known," Mr Keyes said.
The tribunal has already heard it was estimated in 1986 that the BTSB would get an income of £276,000 from the sale of plasma for factor 8 production. However, costs were also incurred in collecting it.
Also yesterday, Mr Keyes said an unsatisfactory situation arose in 1987 when no medical person was reporting to BTSB board meetings on issues which arose at Pelican House. This would have been the role of the chief medical consultant, Dr Vincent Barry, but he spent a lot of his time in the Cork centre of the BTSB.
Dr Barry has claimed he only reported to the board on activities at the Cork centre and that Mr Keyes reported on medical matters in Dublin. Mr Keyes denied this. He also said that consultants working for the BTSB had clinical independence, contrary to the evidence of Dr Emer Lawlor, the board's chief medical witness, which meant they could make their own decisions.
The former chief executive of the Blood Transfusion Service Board, Mr Ted Keyes: accepted that selling donor's blood plasma was a commercial activity which yielded an annual profit to the board.