Two people with hepatitis C were invited by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service to donate blood last year, it has emerged.
News of the incident is doubly embarrassing for the blood bank given that the hepatitis C sufferers were infected through contaminated blood products supplied by the blood bank.
The IBTS has apologised but it will again raise questions about safety procedures. Correspondence on the incident between the blood bank and the Department of Health was published in yesterday's Sunday Independent.
It said a complaint was made about the incident to the blood policy division of the Department of Health by Positive Action, which represents women infected with hepatitis C from contaminated anti-D.
The Department demanded an explanation from the current acting head of the IBTS, Mr Andy Kelly. Mr Kelly, in a letter to the Department, apologised for the error and said that arising from it, the blood bank had changed the way in which it code marked donors who tested positive for hepatitis C. Under the new system they would never be asked to donate again.
He said the error occurred during a mail shot to 8,000 people on its database advising them that the exclusion of donors who had jaundice before their 13th birthday was being lifted. The blood bank has insisted that even if the two hepatitis C sufferers had donated blood it would have been spotted when their blood was tested.