The Irish Haemophilia Society is "outraged" at its treatment by the Lindsay tribunal and accused the tribunal yesterday of not acting in the spirit and nature of its terms of reference.
The dispute arose over IHS complaints that it had not received expert witness statements from the tribunal in time for examination.
Mr Martin Hayden SC, for the IHS, said the tribunal had received some expert statements more than a year ago but had failed to pass all the statements to the IHS until this week.
The tribunal had up to 13 months to prepare for examination of witnesses but the IHS had only five working days, he said. Mr Hayden asked the tribunal to postpone the appearance of a number of expert witnesses until the IHS had time to study their statements.
Refusing the application, tribunal chairwoman Judge Alison Lindsay said she was sorry if the IHS found itself in difficulty but the schedule of witnesses could not be easily changed.
She said the tribunal told all the parties on May 16th that it proposed to hear expert evidence from June 19th to July 27th, yet the objection had only arisen now.
Afterwards, Ms Rosemary Daly, IHS administrator, said she was outraged at the tribunal's decision. "Seventy six people have died, that's what this inquiry is about. Yet there appears to be an extreme hurry to finish this tribunal." The IHS was considering whether to appeal.
Earlier, the tribunal heard that a US haematology expert started using heat-treated blood products on haemophiliacs in 1983 because of fears that HIV could be carried in non-heat-treated products.
Heat-treated blood products were not introduced to most haemophiliacs in this State until 1985, following the first diagnosis of AIDS in a haemophiliac.
Prof Keith Hoots said he first heard of the threat of HIV to haemophiliacs at a conference in June 1982, even though the virus had not been named at that time. By the end of that year, he had heard of eight HIV-related deaths in the haemophiliac population.
Some experts were against heat-treating because of cost and the possibility that it might reduce the effectiveness of the clotting agent, Prof Hoots said. In March 1983, he heard that a heat-treated Factor 8 concentrate had been licensed and, after weighing up the benefits, he decided to gradually introduce it to his patients.
While the full extent of the AIDS threat was not known at that time, he said he did not want to have to look back and say "gosh, if I had done that, I might have been able to prevent cases of AIDS".
The tribunal is visiting the National Haemophiliac Treatment Centre at St James's Hospital today and will not resume hearings until Tuesday.
