Health Department set to answer allegations

The Department of Health is due to react today to allegations by a senior official against the head of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service.

It follows comments by Dr Joan Power that a senior Department of Health official wanted to "bury her" after she criticised the State’s response to aspects of the Hepatitis ‘C’ scandal.

Dr Power, who is based at St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork, uncovered the contamination of anti-D blood products and the infection of patients from blood transfusions in the 1990’s.

Her findings led to stricter screening of blood donations in Ireland and the setting up of the Finlay tribunal.

She accepts she should have personally contacted blood donors who tested positive in the early 1990s but were not told.

The Department is due to respond to the claims today.