Case against former blood bank officials starts today
Dr Terry Walsh and Cecily Cunningham have already had their actions scrutinised in the Finlay Tribunal, which reported its findings in March 1997.
The tribunal was established to examine how more than 1,000 women, who received the anti-D blood product from the Blood Transfusion Service Board when they were pregnant, became infected with hepatitis C.
But the tribunal’s report and findings, like all such investigations established by the State, have no bearing on a criminal trial.
A separate garda investigation is required for a criminal prosecution to occur and that is what happened in the case of the two former BTSB officials.
On July 23 last detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation arrested Dr Walsh, a former chief medical consultant with the board, and Ms Cunningham, a former senior biochemist, at their Dublin homes before bringing them before the Bridewell District Court on charges relating to the infection of seven named women between 1977 and 1992.
Dr Walsh, 61, of Hollypark Avenue, Blackrock, Dublin, and Ms Cecily Cunningham, 62, of Hollybrook Road, Clontarf, Dublin, were charged under Section 23 of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act.
The piece of legislation, rarely used in modern times, accuses them of administering, or causing to be administered a “destructive or noxious thing”, thereby causing grievous bodily harm. The offence carries a jail term of up to 10 years.
Dr Walsh held the posts of senior medical officer, assistant director and chief medical consultant at the BTSB between 1969 and his retirement in 1995, while Ms Cunningham joined the board as a technician in 1968 and worked as principal biochemist from 1974.
Ms Cunningham left the BTSB, now called Irish Blood Transfusion Service, some years ago.
An investigation is expected to be announced before the year’s end into the infection of around 150 other women who fell outside the remit of the Finlay Tribunal.
That examination will come under the new system under the Commissions of Investigation Bill put forward by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell.
