THE Fianna Fail spokeswoman on health, Mrs Maire Geoghegan Quinn, will seek a suspension of Dail business tomorrow to debate what she terms "the latest twist in the hepatitis C controversy".
Her party wants to discuss "the contradiction" that has emerged between evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee last week by the acting chief executive of the Blood Transfusion Service Board, and Dail statements by the Minister for Health Mr Noonan and his Minister of State, Mr Brian O'Shea.
According to Mrs Geoghegan Quinn, that "conflict" must be explained. Mr Noonan is due to take questions tomorrow while on Thursday the management of the blood service is to give evidence before the Oireachtas Social Affairs Committee.
"The Ministers have claimed . . . that the expert group that investigated the hepatitis C controversy knew of the existence of a 1976 file that showed the plasma donor at the centre of the scandal had infective hepatitis," she said.
However, the management of the Blood Transfusion Service Board had told the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday that the expert group did not know of the file and that the Ministers knew this when they made such statements to the Dail, she added.
Accusing the Ministers of "misleading the Dail", she said that, following the revision of the Dail's sub judice rules, the Ministers would be "unable to hide behind this cover, even though there is a case pending".