The DPP has contemporary evidence from witnesses and documents indicating that the former principal biochemist in the Blood Transfusion Service Board, Cecily Cunningham, was aware of a risk of infected anti-D blood product from 1977 and had inadequately responded to that risk, the High Court was told yesterday.
There was "prima facie evidence" that Ms Cunningham had expertise in relation to blood products and the risk of infection, Shane Murphy SC, for the DPP, said.
Mr Murphy was opposing an application by Ms Cunningham, Hollybank Road, Clontarf, Dublin, for an order halting her trial in relation to the infection of seven women with hepatitis C from contaminated blood products on dates in 1977, 1991 and 1992.
The only other person charged in connection with the hepatitis C saga was Dr Terry Walsh, formerly assistant national director with the BTSB. He has since died and the proceedings against him have consequently collapsed.
There was evidence Ms Cunningham was not - as she was arguing in her action to stop her trial - a peripheral player or "just a casual onlooker" but was actively involved in the process "which has given rise to these harmful events", Mr Murphy said.
"This is not a formless case, it has a focus and that is on the role of Ms Cunningham," he told Mr Justice Liam McKechnie.
The DPP would also be relying on evidence from several experts as to what should have been, but was not done, in relation to the problem of anti-D infection at the relevant times, counsel said.
It would be contended that the BTSB should have investigated cases of infection and that the relevant blood products should have been withdrawn immediately if a donor was suspected of having jaundice or to have received multiple blood trans-fusions.
The DPP would contend it was Ms Cunningham's role to be aware of developments relating to the manufacture of blood products and the risk of infection and there was evidence she had acknowledged that role. If there had been an investigation in 1976/1977 after doctors expressed concerns about haemoglobic reactions in women patients who had received anti-D product from the BTSB, "some of the cases might have been prevented".
Mr Murphy said the issue for the court in Ms Cunningham's application was whether she could deal with such evidence, and it was the DPP's case that she could do so. He was contending that she could not be prejudiced by having to deal with documents signed or annotated by her at the relevant times.
She would be able to say whether or not those documents reflected her true understanding of what was happening. She could also challenge other witnesses' accounts.
Ms Cunningham seemed to be suggesting that she was somehow on the periphery of events, that more senior officials in the BTSB, who are now dead, had dictated policy, and that her right to a fair trial was affected by the absence of their testimony.
Ms Cunningham had, in a letter to the chief executive of the BTSB in July 1991, referred to herself as the principal biochemist and the person charged with anti-D production. She was "an expert in her field" and not "a functionary".
The case resumes on Tuesday.
