Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

It seems the Minister for Health is determined to avoid any direct connection with this issue, despite its importance. The last time this issue was discussed in this House was 25 June 2004. At the time, the Minister for State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Tim O'Malley, assured me the then Minister, Deputy Martin, was fully aware of the difficulties with the current building in Cork and was working with the IBTS to develop a suitable alternative.

The development brief for the new Cork centre project was submitted to the Department by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service in March 2003. The cost of the project at that time was €28 million. We can only wonder how much it would cost today. We have no notion of how much it would cost because nothing has happened. No design team has been appointed and no work has taken place on the promised new building despite the promise made by the previous Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin and the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley that planning permission would be, in his own words, fast-tracked and that all that was to be done would be done as quickly as possible. Despite this, nothing has happened. There are three new prefabs but the service still works from the old prefabs which have been nailed up and their roofs repaired.

We should remind ourselves that this is the centre that discovered a link between contaminated blood products and hepatitis C, something for which every woman should be grateful. The Cork centre is the only one, apart from a laboratory in a maternity unit in Galway general hospital, that has received a quality assured ISO mark. The IBTS headquarters in Dublin has never achieved this quality mark. The Cork centre achieved the quality mark under appalling conditions, leaking roofs, prefabs over 20 years old and no certainty about the future of the unit. Imagine what it could have done had it had ideal working conditions.

This saga began with the Finlay tribunal. The main recommendation from that awful tribunal was that the blood transfusion service in Cork should be upgraded and a new building put in place. That was in 1997. In 2001, the Joint Committee on Health and Children supported the Finlay recommendation but still the IBTS dragged its heels and nothing was done. As a compromise, it was agreed to appoint a panel of experts agreed by the IBTS and a sub-committee of the Southern Health Board. Those international experts, recognised as experts in their field, recommended that Ireland should have a second test centre to ensure a safe, secure, speedy service.

People may not be aware of this, but doctors and consultants in the south are concerned about this centre that has served the country well. Everyone from the expert panel to doctors and clients are concerned about those whose health and safety this Government is charged with protecting. The experts say that two centres is the way to go. The question remains why we are still waiting on a new building. Will we have to wait for this new building as long as we have been waiting for BreastCheck? What is happening and where is the building?

Everyone agrees that the scandal that was hepatitis C and the infection of haemophiliacs through contaminated blood products should not have happened and can never be allowed to happen again. The only way to avoid it is by having two test centres, one of which happens to be located in Cork and serves the Munster region.

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