The former health minister, Dr Rory O'Hanlon, said yesterday he did not know if allegations about BTSB blood products causing HIV infection had ever been investigated by his Department.
The allegations were made by the Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS) in 1989. It claimed that two of its members had been infected.
Giving evidence to the Lindsay tribunal, Dr O'Hanlon said he would have expected officials in his Department to bring such serious allegations to his attention, but they had not done so.
He added that allegations would normally only be brought to his attention if there was any substance to them.
Dr O'Hanlon said he was always of the impression that it was foreign blood products which were responsible for the infections. However, the tribunal has already heard that BTSB Factor 9 infected seven haemophiliacs in the State with HIV, five of whom have since died.
The tribunal was also told yesterday that an article published in The Irish Times three years before the IHS allegations suggested that BTSB product was causing HIV infections among haemophiliacs.
The article was attached to a memo brought to Cabinet in 1991 in the context of agreeing compensation for haemophiliacs.
Dr O'Hanlon said he did not see the June 1986 newspaper article until 1991 and believed, if there had been any substance to its contents, it would have become clear by then, five years later.
The article quoted the former medical director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, Dr Ian Temperley, who, in an address to the Academy of Medical Laboratory Science, said a native Factor 9 concentrate used by haemophilia B patients could be causing HIV infections.
Dr O'Hanlon stressed he was unaware of the truth of the article in 1991 when a no-fault compensation scheme had been entered into with haemophiliacs, who between them were eventually granted £8 million.
Asked by counsel for the tribunal, Mr Gerard Durcan SC, if he accepted that patients with haemophilia were entitled to have their case for compensation judged on all the facts, Dr O'Hanlon said he did, adding that it was very regrettable that the information now known was not available to him then.
He said the Department did not have the full information either.
However, a memo prepared for him in April 1989 by the Department of Health's former principal officer, Mr Michael Lyons, noted allegations by the IHS that two people had been infected by BTSB Factor 9.
Asked about this by counsel for the BTSB, Mr Michael McGrath SC, Dr O'Hanlon said he did not know if he had ever seen the document.
He did not know when the allegation was first made to the Department, or what its basis was.
However, if he had seen it he would have made further inquiries, he said.
The memo also advised that at that time 112 haemophiliacs had contracted HIV, nine had AIDS and six had died of AIDS.
The tribunal also heard the Department of Health was aware in 1991 when it entered the no-fault compensation settlement with haemophiliacs that there was a risk that the State was liable for some of the infections "on the basis of information available to date". This was the legal advice given to the Department at the time, according to documents over which privilege was recently waived, and which were then produced to the tribunal. Dr O'Hanlon said he did not know the basis for this opinion.
The tribunal continues today.