THE Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, is to appear before the hepatitis C tribunal of inquiry today to give evidence concerning his role in the handling of the contamination scandal.
Mr Noonan has already submitted a statement to the tribunal.
His attendance follows an emotional appearance yesterday by the daughter of Mrs Brigid McCole, the Donegal mother of 12 who died last year as a result of infection through anti D immunoglobulin.
Ms Brid McCole (27), her eldest daughter, told the tribunal that the family would lie awake at night listening to their sick mother's screams, unable to do anything to help.
Her mother "just went through hell" during her illness, she said.
"I feel very strongly that only because my mother died this tribunal would not have come through," she said. "It is only a shame that some, one had to die for this to happen.
All Brigid McCole wanted, said her daughter, was to get to the bottom of what happened. "It was never about money or anything like that. All she wanted was the truth, and she was denied that, all through her life she was denied that."
The tribunal also heard that little was known about the illness and Mrs McCole had been very upset that she had been going to hospital "for so many years and had been seen by so many doctors and had so many blood tests ... she was beginning to doubt herself if it was all in her mind."
Ms McCole said her mother, who died in October, had been advised by her medical consultant to press for a High Court hearing last June. "She was denied that by the judge and he said if she was so sick that she could go to the (compensation) tribunal."
She also said that Mr Noonan had said the court hearing, scheduled for October, would act as the inquiry. "That put an extra burden on her. Her sister had to write to the Attorney General," she said.
Mr Rory Brady SC, counsel for the tribunal, introduced Ms McCole as being there "to impress upon the tribunal and the public at large the extent to which your mother suffered as a result of having this hepatitis C virus."
Yesterday also an assistant secretary at the Department of Health, Mr Donal Devitt, gave evidence that he had "expressed strongly" a view, when the Department was informed of the hepatitis C scandal in February 1994, that a statutory tribunal be set up.
He had advocated this at a meeting with the then Minister for Health, Mr Howlin, the Minister's, adviser, Dr Tim Collins, and the then secretary of the Department, Mr John Hurley.
This has been denied by Mr Howlin, who is due to give evidence on Monday. Mr Hurley and, Dr Collins, who were asked to appear before the tribunal only this week, will give evidence this morning.
Mr Devitt also told the tribunal that suspect anti D had been given to nine women in the months; following its official withdrawal ink February 1994. As a result the Department "instructed" the BTSB "physically" to withdraw the product in November 1994.
Of the nine women concerned, eight had been traced and were tested. All were negative.