The former chief executive officer of the Blood Transfusion Service Board would have ordered a "court martial" if he had known that a staff member had destroyed records, the tribunal was told.
Giving evidence yesterday, the former CEO, Mr Ted Keyes, said that he only learned after the tribunal began that all documents relating to the dispatch of blood products to hospitals by Pelican House prior to 1986 had been shredded in 1993.
Mr Keyes said he had issued a directive to staff in August 1989 ordering that the routine destruction of records should cease as they might be required for cases being taken by haemophiliacs.
Mr Keyes said yesterday that Mr Sean Hanratty, the board's former chief technical officer, would have been responsible for the dispatch records. The 1989 order had never been lifted, he said.