A Galway doctor wrote to the National Drugs Advisory Board in 1984 advising it that imported blood products carried a "significant risk" and that their use should be restricted to "critical clinical situations", the tribunal heard.
At this time imported concentrates were used extensively by haemophiliacs in their own homes, but Prof Ernest Egan, a consultant haematologist at Galway's University College Hospital, did not agree with this.
Counsel for the tribunal, Mr Gerry Durcan SC, asked Prof Egan how long he held these views and if they were conveyed to the Blood Transfusion Service Board, of which he was a member from 1976 to 1983.
Prof Egan said there was always perceived to be a risk with imported blood products but there was a lot of pressure from representatives of the Irish Haemophilia Society to have convenient therapy, including home therapy, available.
This had to be weighed against medical concern that more convenient products could carry risks such as hepatitis, which was thought at the time to be a mild condition in haemophiliacs.
He said that once a pattern was set in terms of what haemophiliacs wanted, it wasn't changed when the HIV crisis emerged. The first Irish haemophiliac was diagnosed with AIDS in November 1984.
He said he did not know if his views on the risks associated with imported products were discussed at BTSB meetings. They would have been discussed at BTSB scientific committee meetings and at meetings of the National Haemophilia Services Co-ordinating Committee, of which he was a member for a time but which he became disenchanted with when it did not support the development of services in Galway.
Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr Martin Hayden, asked if he ever told haemophiliacs that he felt imported products carried significant risks. Prof Egan said he could not recall a specific instance when he did so.
He added that in hindsight the word "significant" in his letter might have been too strong.
Also yesterday, the former chief executive officer of the BTSB, Mr Ted Keyes, said he felt it had been "wise" for the blood bank to obtain products from a drug company, despite the fact that the company, Armour, wanted to be indemnified against the consequences of any infection its products caused.
Mr Keyes said the contract with Armour was signed on the advice of Prof Ian Temperley, former director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, who in a letter to the board in June 1988 said hospitals could not be expected to bear a doubling of costs in 1989 for products treated with newer viral inactivation procedures. He said some balance would have to be struck between cost and infection danger.