The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, will face a barrage of questions from Opposition TDs in the Dail today about the latest CJD controversy.
Mr Cowen defended his handling of the issue yesterday, but said that the Irish Medicines Board should have informed him of the problem immediately, rather than a week after it had come to light.
Some 268 people who received a British blood product which carried a minute risk of infection with CJD are to be officially informed within the next few days.
Each patient is to be briefed individually, at the hospital where they received the product, by their consultant, according to Mr Cowen. However, it is not yet known if it will be possible to trace all the recipients.
Some hospitals which used the product are still trying to identify the recipients. The number of recipients has been determined by the amount of product used rather than by assessment of patient records.
The Minister was informed of the recall of Amerscan Pulmonate II, a radiological dye used in lung scans, on December 1st - five days after Department officials were informed and nine days after the Irish Medicines Board had been alerted.
Mr Cowen said yesterday that the IMB had made a judgment that use of the product amounted to a "very low risk situation" and had proceeded to withdraw the product, which was the board's priority. "I have told the IMB it would be better in the future, even though their judgment was justified and valid in the circumstances, if I were informed immediately", Mr Cowen said.
Last night, the chief executive of the IMB, Dr John Kelly, said that the Minister was "entitled to his point of view". However, from the board's point of view, "this whole thing has been blown out of all proportion".
Dr Kelly continued: "There is a minuscule risk to people. The UK authorities notified us, as they did 47 countries where the 10,000 vials had been sent. As soon as we got their letter, we instigated the recall. We then followed that up and drew up a balancing statement to ensure that we had it all. The fact is that we did not know the status of the product - how much was out there, or how may people received it.
"We wanted to have the facts before we went to the Department. If we thought this was a major public health matter we would have immediately told the Minister."
Mysterious secrets of CJD: page 8