Several pharmaceutical companies in addition to Pharmacia Ireland were supplied with organs harvested during post-mortem examinations from children without parental consent, it has been claimed.
Shortly after a Southern Health Board statement confirmed Novo Nordisk, in addition to KabiVitrum, the predecessor of Pharmacia Ireland, had also been supplied with organs, the Parents for Justice group said it had been "reliably informed" that "many more" pharmaceutical companies were also involved.
At a press conference in Dublin yesterday, Ms Fionnuala O'Reilly, chairwoman of the organisation which represents parents of children whose organs were retained without consent, said the practice seemed to constitute a multi-million pound industry.
She said thyroid, adrenal and pancreatic glands, as well as pituitary glands, were harvested for the manufacture of medicinal products. "This finally explains to the parents in this organisation the reason why so many organs which were unrelated to the cause of death of children were removed," Ms O'Reilly said.
"For example, children who died from cardiac problems had virtually every organ in their body removed."
Furthermore, she said, a reliable source had shown her documentation which indicated that a paper trail existed to prove body parts were exported "wholesale". The entire operation was for profit, she claimed.
She insisted there had to have been "some level of State responsibility for the issuing of licences" for the export of human material abroad.
"We are reliably informed that many more pharmaceutical companies in addition to Pharmacia Ireland were involved in the procurement of children's glands without the consent or knowledge of their parents.
"We as an organisation are in possession of the names of the companies involved. We do not propose to reveal those names today. We would rather that those companies would disclose this information voluntarily and do the decent thing by families.
"We are not prepared to wait forever for this disclosure and if pressed we will and we can identify the companies involved," she said.
Ms O'Reilly also urged the chairwoman of the organs inquiry, Ms Anne Dunne SC, from which Parents for Justice has withdrawn, to make a statement on the matter. Ms Dunne has been conducting her investigations in private for more than three years.
Ms O'Reilly said the "barbaric practice which was motivated by profit was perpetrated by many hospitals" across the State. It went on, she said, from the 1960s to 2000.
The Department of Health said last night that if Parents for Justice had new information it should hand it over to the Dunne inquiry.
Ms O'Reilly conceded that her group would derive some comfort from the knowledge that children's organs had gone towards improving the quality of life of other children if they were used to make human growth hormone, but she said that did not "justify the failure to seek informed and full consent for these practices".