The wife of a haemophiliac, who contracted the AIDS virus in October 1995 from her husband, had an abortion after she became pregnant in 1997 because she feared the baby would be born with HIV, the Lindsay tribunal was told.
The couple - who used the pseudonyms Edele and Fiachra - were convinced the HIV virus was only transmissible through contaminated blood products rather than sexual transmission as had happened, they told the tribunal.
Fiachra was told in 1985 by a junior doctor at St James's Hospital that he had tested HIV-positive as a result of being given contaminated products. That same day he saw a list at the hospital which indicated his four brothers - all haemophiliacs - also had the AIDS virus.
Edele (32) said she was shocked to learn that she was pregnant. For three weeks she had tried to "blank it out", telling no one, not even her husband. "It destroyed me, but it was a huge blow for him, too, like he was told he had the HIV virus all over again."
"I was never told anything else," Edele added. She became concerned because of the "tablets and stuff" she was taking as medication. "I did not want the baby to be born with the HIV virus. Nobody told me anything. I asked for help and did not get it."
Mr Maurice Collins, for St James's Hospital, put it to Edele that Ms Eadaoin O'Shea, the nursing sister in charge of haemophilia patients at the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, recalled seeing "both you and your husband" in October 1995, shortly after she had learned she had contracted the AIDS virus.
Edele vehemently denied this. "I was on my own. My father and my sister sat in the car outside."
The hospital social worker, Ms Maeve Foreman also recalled seeing Edele in October or November after her diagnosis, Mr Collins said. He asked Edele if she remembered. "No I don't. The only person I talked to was my husband, my mam and his mother. That's all."
She described in detail the effects of her husband's condition on her and their two young children. They had been together since she was 15, she said, and there was nothing she would not do for Fiachra. But their situation had taken its toll on her life and on the family's future.
Earlier, the tribunal heard from Fiachra (36) who denied Mr Collins's assertion that he had received advice on safe sex from Ms Foreman or that she had met Edele in 1988 "to speak to her also".
"Most haematologists I talked to since my wife became infected said they did not believe it was something that could be passed on (through sex). This must have flowed over my head," replied Fiachra.
Mr Brian McGovern SC, representing haematologist Dr Helena Daly, asked whether Fiachra remembered his client counselling him "about HIV transmission through sex" in 1985.
"I am 100 per cent sure she never talked to me about HIV or transmission of the virus through sex," he replied. "Nobody has. I stress, nobody has ever said it."
Fiachra told the tribunal of his early life as a haemophiliac and his high hopes for his prospects in a thriving family business. Eventually he took over the business and the future looked good. The business provided for all the family.
They were "cunning and discreet" about the way they hid the family secret from the public. "What we were hiding came to light when my eldest brother got sick and died." His parents aged dramatically from that time, he said. The business eventually had to be sold.
In time, it became impossible to work. As well as HIV, he contracted hepatitis C and later Hodgkin's disease. "I'm frightened for my kids, wife and family," he told the tribunal, "for what they have to live with."
Haemophiliacs as a group of men were timid, he asserted. "It takes a woman to be strong, like Bridget McCole. She was the driving force behind us."