The former health minister Mr Barry Desmond told the Lindsay tribunal yesterday he was appalled that he had been given wrong information on the heat treatment of blood products used to treat haemophiliacs.
He described it as "indefensible". It had led him to give misinformation to the Dail and other parties. "Dreadful misinformation was given to the Department, by whom I don't know," he said.
Mr Desmond told the Dail in November 1985 that the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) had been making heat-treated blood products for haemophiliacs since January 1985. However, this information was inaccurate and non heat-treated Factor 9 continued to be supplied into 1986, infecting seven haemophilia B patients with HIV. Five of these patients have died.
Mr Desmond admitted, however, that he was aware that 33 per cent of the 256 haemophiliacs in the State who had been tested for the HIV virus by autumn 1985 were infected, but he said he did not carry out any inquiries to see if enough was being done for these people in crisis.
He said he had received assurances from within his Department that the matter was being taken care of.
Asked by counsel for the tribunal, Mr Gerard Durcan SC, if he asked anyone for further information or if he told anyone to take further steps he said: "I regarded the matter as extremely serious but it was not incumbent on me, as such, to develop further strategies. The strategy was there."
Mr Desmond, who was Labour minister for health from December 1982 to February 1987, is the first former minister to come before the tribunal which is investigating the infection of more than 220 haemophiliacs in the State with HIV and Hepatitis C from contaminated blood products. His successor, the former health minister Mr Rory O'Hanlon is due to give evidence today.
Mr Desmond said he had only learnt he had given wrong information to the Dail at the tribunal. Asked his view of the situation by Mr Durcan, he said: "I'm appalled that that should have happened."
He said if he had been aware that Irish-made blood products were not heat-treated and still being issued, he would have immediately taken action. Heat-treatment was used to kill the HIV virus.
Mr Desmond described the infection of haemophiliacs as dreadful. He said he should have been informed in 1986 that Irish-made products had infected some of them but this knowledge was never imparted to him.
Mr Durcan asked him to explain how he was given wrong information. "I can't surmise. In learning of this at the tribunal I was quite shocked," he said.
Counsel also asked if he felt the response to the crisis was adequate. Mr Desmond said what happened had been "a visitation on innocent people which was appalling, dreadful and indefensible". However, he felt everything that could have been done was done within the Department of Health.
The tribunal has already heard conflicting evidence on where the misinformation given to Mr Desmond came from. Mr Paul Barron, an assistant secretary at the Department, said the information had been supplied by the BTSB.
However, Dr James Walsh, another Department official, told the tribunal it was unlikely the information came from the blood bank.