When the tribunal began nine months ago, it was said by many that the Blood Transfusion Service Board was not so much on trial as the whole healthcare system.
If that should encompass doctors, Department of Health officials, government ministers and treaters of haemophiliacs, so too should it include the pharmaceutical companies contracted by the BTSB to make blood products from Irish plasma.
Yesterday the tribunal heard about the questionable practices of one such company, Armour Pharmaceutical, a multinational with plants in Germany, the United States and Britain, which supplied the BTSB with a blood product over which it seemingly had safety fears.
On Monday the tribunal heard how the company asked the board to sign a letter of indemnity in January 1988 protecting it from any legal actions which might arise over the heat-treated factor 8 product. This followed the voluntary withdrawal of a similar product in Canada which was linked to hepatitis C infections.
Yesterday the tribunal heard that Armour asked in September 1988 for the BTSB to remove the company's trade name and labels from all products in a further attempt to distance itself from them.
The multinational was also found to have sponsored a newsletter in August 1988 purporting to provide an objective review of a new means of treating blood products, known as the solvent detergent method, believed to reduce the risk of hepatitis C transmission. In fact, as counsel for the tribunal, Mr John Finlay SC said, the publication was merely trying to promote a new product which Armour was developing and "denigrate a rival product".
That rival solvent detergent method was ultimately shown to be highly effective in minimising infections and was adopted by blood boards throughout the world.
The ethics of producing such a newsletter at a time when agencies like the BTSB were struggling to come to terms with a new hepatitis virus, and were in need of objective information on methods of inactivating it, was not explored by the tribunal.
It seems clear, however, that the initiative was primarily motivated by commercial reasons.
As Dr Emer Lawlor, the BTSB's deputy medical director, said, "for a company selling a very purified product", the new solvent detergent technology, which would have been cheaply and readily available to all blood boards, "obviously was a problem".
While Armour agreed to supply a blood product over which it had concerns, however, it had a willing accomplice in the BTSB.
Serious questions arise for Prof Ian Temperley, in particular, from a letter in June 1988 in which he advised the board to continue importing the product for a further year.
Prof Temperley was wearing two hats at that stage, being medical director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre and a BTSB board member since May 1987. It was clear his advice carried huge weight and his recommendation was approved by the board the following month.
The appropriateness of Prof Temperley's advice will be examined in the coming weeks when expert medical witnesses take the stand.
According to the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, 191 haemophiliacs have tested positive for hepatitis C, 44 of whom have died. The Irish Haemophilia Society puts the number of infections at 220. However, it was stressed yesterday by both Mr Finlay and Ms Lawlor that there was no evidence of any of the infections being caused by Armour product imported from the beginning of 1988.