Lindsay Tribunal hears how BTS records were destroyed in bulk

It has been disclosed that the Blood Transfusion Service destroyed all of the documentation it had, recording the dispatch of blood and blood products to hospitals and other centres up to 1986. The disclosure was made by Dr Emer Lawlor, deputy medical director of the BTS, about the infection of haemophiliacs with hepatitis C and HIV from clotting agents. It was the second day of her cross-examination at the Lindsay Tribunal by the legal team of the Irish Haemophilia Society.

Dispatch records detail the various types of whole blood, blood particles and blood products that were sent by the Blood Transfusion Service to hospitals around the country. Clotting agents sent to haemophilia treatment centres would also have been on the dispatch records. Today at the Lindsay Tribunal, it was disclosed that all of the dispatch records from the establishment of the BTS in 1966 to 1986 were destroyed in bulk in 1995.

Dr Lawlor told the Tribunal that she did not know who gave the order, but stated that financial or medical records were not destroyed at the same time. She told John Trainor, Senior Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, that the BTS has prepared an affidavit on the matter for the Tribunal. However, it appears that the Tribunal had been expected to deal with this matter at a later date. Questions therefore relating to who ordered the destruction, for what reason and the significance of the lost information remain unanswered, at least for the moment.

After today's hearing, a spokeswoman for the Blood Transfusion said that the destruction had occurred in 1993 and not in 1995 as Dr Lawlor had stated. This is important as in 1996 Mr Justice Finlay began his inquiry into the infection of women with hepatitis from the anti-D injection, a blood product.