John Minihan (Progressive Democrats)

I welcome the Minister to the House and wish him well in his most difficult brief. I am sad that on his first visit to the House we are debating such tragic events. The events that gave rise to the Lindsay tribunal took place many years ago and much of the evidence was of a historical nature.

Under its terms of reference, the tribunal's sole member, Judge Alison Lindsay, was required to discover a number of key points. These included, first, which relevant products caused or probably caused the infection of haemophiliacs with HIV and hepatitis C; second, when the board of the BTSB and other relevant persons in the State became aware, or ought reasonably to have become aware, that relevant products had become, or that there was a risk that they would become, a source of infection; third, the adequacy and timeliness of the response of the board and other relevant agents of the State to their becoming aware that the relevant products had, or that there was a risk they would, become a source of infection; fourth, the considerations that influenced the decisions of the board and other relevant persons in the State in the selection of the manufacturers of these relevant products; and fifth, the standards and procedures applied by those manufacturers in respect of donor selection, screening and testing and plasma quarantine, virus inactivation and product recall. We should bear this in mind.

The tribunal did much good work. For example, we now know which products were a source of infection. However, it failed to establish with any degree of certainty when the manufacturers of those products discovered that their products were a source of infection. It is by no means certain that we now know the full extent of the BTSB's knowledge as this body, unlike other State bodies, refused to waive privilege in respect of its legal advice. Consequently, the tribunal was an opportunity missed.

The tribunal was established to discover how 252 people with haemophilia contracted HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated blood products administered by agents of the State and supplied or manufactured by a statutory corporation established in 1965 under the Health (Corporate Bodies) Act, 1961. Haemophiliacs looked to Judge Lindsay to provide closure on the terrible ordeal they endured over the past 20 years. They required answers to how and when it happened and who knew.