The Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) has yet to decide whether it will ban people who visited the United Kingdom in the 1980s from donating blood because of a "theoretical risk" they could transmit the fatal brain disease CJD.
The BTSB was reacting to guidelines issued by North American health authorities which will prohibit blood donations in the US and Canada from people who spent more than six months in the UK between 1980 and 1996. A spokeswoman for the BTSB said the board had been looking into the issue for the past six months and believed that such a ban would "decimate" the blood supply in the State.
"Our examination of census figures shows that at least 8 per cent of the population spent time in Britain during that period," she said.
The organisation has already undertaken a survey of a sample of 1,000 donors to find out how many of them had travelled to countries in Europe where CJD has been found. The conclusions of that survey will be considered by the BTSB medical advisory committee next month. The disease is thought to have killed more than 40 people in the UK.
According to the spokeswoman, there is no proof that new variant CJD - the human form of mad cow disease which affects younger people - is transmitted by blood transfusion, but the BTSB will ensure that measures are put in place to guarantee the safety of the blood supply.
She added that the BTSB had already begun removing white cells from blood to minimise the "theoretical risk" that CJD could be transmitted by blood products. The issue is complicated by the fact that so many British food products are available in Irish supermarkets.
Speaking last June, the chief executive of the BTSB, Mr Martin Hynes, described the issue as "a real dilemma". "The truth of it is that if there isn't blood people will die, so we have to balance the theoretical risk associated with new variant CJD against the real risk that people will die if there is no blood available".
The spokeswoman blamed the scaffolders' dispute for the long delay in moving from their premises at Pelican House in Ballsbridge to St James's Hospital. The move will now take place during the first weekend of December.