An accountant who has been hired by the Blood Transfusion Service Board to give evidence to the Lindsay tribunal on the board's finances over several years will blame the Department of Health for failing to adequately fund the BTSB, the tribunal was told.
Mr John McStay, who will start giving evidence on Wednesday, has already given a report to the tribunal in which he also examines the relationship that existed between the BTSB and the Travenol pharmaceutical firm. The tribunal has heard that the company paid for a trip to the US for the BTSB's former national director, Dr Jack O'Riordan.
A preview of what he would say emerged yesterday when counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, Mr Martin Hayden SC, made an application to the tribunal chairwoman, Judge Alison Lindsay, to defer hearing his evidence.
Mr Hayden said the evidence of persons involved with the board's finances should be heard before Mr McStay to avoid prejudice. These persons included Mr Ted Keyes, a former chief executive officer who was also an accountant, and members of the board's finance and budget committees.
He claimed their evidence could be coloured or influenced by the evidence of Mr McStay, if Mr McStay was heard first. Putting him up first "smacked" of trying to protect the factual witnesses in due course, he said. Counsel for the BTSB, Mr Frank Clarke SC, explained that Mr McStay would give evidence of finances over a period for which there was no financial person from the BTSB still alive.
Judge Lindsay turned down Mr Hayden's application, saying she believed Mr McStay's evidence would be helpful if it came next. She will begin hearing his evidence on Wednesday and the tribunal has adjourned until then.