The Irish Medicines Board has decided to release documents - over which it was entitled to claim privilege - to the Lindsay tribunal.
The board, formerly the National Drugs Advisory Board, agreed to waive legal professional privilege for "any documents within its power or procurement in relation to the matters giving rise to the tribunal", a spokeswoman said.
The move follows the Irish Haemophilia Society's request to all parties before the tribunal to waive privilege over all their documents, so the full facts of what the State bodies knew in 1991 can be uncovered. This was when haemophiliacs infected with HIV from contaminated blood products were compensated in a no-fault scheme.
The tribunal chairwoman, Judge Alison Lindsay, was asked by the IHS to order all parties to waive their privilege but she said it was a constitutional right to claim legal professional privilege and only the parties themselves had the power to waive that right.
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service, formerly the BTSB, last month refused to waive privilege over its documents, as did two Dublin hospitals where most haemophiliacs were treated, St James's Hospital and the Adelaide & Meath Hospital, incorporating the National Children's Hospital.
The Minister for Health, following lobbying from the IHS, was first to agree to waive privilege over confidential Government files, including those relating to the 1991 compensation scheme.
The Department of Health confirmed last night that 1,800 such documents had been delivered to the tribunal on March 2nd. More than 1,700 of them had been in the Chief State Solicitor's office since the 1991 settlement.
