Before we start Leaders' Questions, I ask Deputies to co-operate with time, which is to the benefit of everybody.

Over the weekend, it was revealed that Deputy Leo Varadkar, when Taoiseach, leaked a confidential document to a friend. The document was a confidential draft copy of the 2019 GP services contract, a contract with a value of €210 million. The contract was negotiated between the State and the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO. Deputy Varadkar's friend was president of a rival organisation, the National Association of General Practitioners.

The facts of what happened are not in dispute. Deputy Varadkar has confirmed that, as Taoiseach, he leaked this document to his friend on a date between 11 and 16 April 2019. The document was a draft. As his own handwritten notes on the leaked document confirmed, it was subject to amendment and change. The grateful appreciation of his friend to Deputy Varadkar, as Taoiseach, was expressed as follows, "To be fair, Leo always delivers." That his friend, Dr. Maitiú Ó Tuathail, was eager to protect Deputy Varadkar, then Taoiseach, is evident in the published exchanges and little wonder given that he had campaigned for Deputy Varadkar to become the leader of Fine Gael.

The leaking of this document was not motivated by public interest: it was giving a dig out to a friend, it is as crude as that, a friend whose organisation was in competition with the IMO for members, subscriptions and influence. It was an organisation that subsequently collapsed and was liquidated in July 2019. So it is clear that Deputy Varadkar abused his position as Taoiseach. He will give an account of himself later today.

The Taoiseach is now head of Government and Deputy Varadkar serves as Tánaiste. The Taoiseach has stated publicly that while these events were not best practice that no law has been broken and, further, that he has confidence in the Tánaiste.

Given his stated position, can the Taoiseach tell us when the Tánaiste informed him that he had leaked this document? Did he wake up to the news on Saturday morning? Who gave Deputy Leo Varadkar the GP contract document in the first place? When did this matter come to Cabinet? Was that when Deputy Leo Varadkar was furnished with the document? Did every member of Cabinet receive the same document? Did Deputy Varadkar inform any other member of Cabinet or any official that he intended to, or had, leaked the document? Was the IMO informed of his course of action before or after he had sent the document to his friend? How has the Taoiseach established that this was a one off event and not a pattern of behaviour? Has Deputy Varadkar leaked other documents? What was meant by "to be fair, Leo always delivers"? Has the Taoiseach asked him that? The Taoiseach has been categoric that no law has been broken. Is that the position of the Attorney General? Is it the position of the Attorney General that Deputy Leo Varadkar has not broken the law? Finally, has the Taoiseach seen all the correspondence, documents and notes of conversations between the National Association of General Practitioners, the Department of Health, the Minister for Health and the Department of An Taoiseach? Has he scrutinised all those? Why is it that he refuses to publish all this correspondence, documents and notes of conversations for public scrutiny?

I have made it very clear that what the Tánaiste did on the GP contract when he was Taoiseach in the last Government was not best practice. It was inappropriate and the wrong way to do things. I have said that and the Tánaiste has acknowledged that and has agreed to come to the House to address the issue and answer any questions that Members have on it.

The GP contract was a positive development and welcomed by all Members of the House. Members had been pushing for a conclusion to long negotiations around a new GP contract. It was welcome because it involved the reversal of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest, FEMPI, worth about €120 million and the chronic disease management programme at primary care level which was worth about €80 million. It was a deal which everyone welcomes. It received a lot of publicity at the time by all media outlets when it was announced by the IMO on 5 April. I have the IMO's press release here. It includes quite considerable detail on items including capitation fees, €2 million per annum investment in practices in deprived communities, chronic disease management, maternity and paternity payments for GPs including the contribution to locum costs. It is all there in the IMO press release from 5 April. On 6 April, the HSE announced the details of the deal and the Government did so. I understand Cabinet approved it on 9 April and then it went to IMO members. The essentials of the deal were out there. As I said yesterday, deals of this sort involving such a significant degree of public expenditure and improvements and investment in the health services, at community care and primary care levels, should be published as early as possible.

That is my view. As I said, the IMO had reached agreement with the Government in this matter.

Deputy McDonald made a comment that I refused to publish something. I would like her to withdraw that comment because I have not refused to publish anything. I will publish anything that is of relevance to this matter. I have asked my Secretary General to have a preliminary look at what is in my Department, following the Deputy's letter that arrived late yesterday evening. The only thing that has been found so far is a letter from Chris Goodey of the NAGP, dated 9 April, to the Department of the Taoiseach. The letter was sent to the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, on 5 April and was copied to the then Taoiseach and the then Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Deputy Fleming. It relates to the NAGP's concern regarding the removal of medical cards from patients by the primary care reimbursement service. I can read out the letter if the Deputy wishes.

I would prefer if the Taoiseach answered my questions.

She was anxious that all correspondence would be published. This is the letter I received from the Secretary General this morning. It is the only letter and I felt obliged to bring it in because I know the Deputy was very concerned about what she perceives to be numerous pieces of correspondence in my Department on this issue. I have to inform her, from a preliminary examination of this issue, that there are not numerous notes or items of correspondence within the Department of An Taoiseach. Obviously, it would have been the Department of Health and the HSE that primarily dealt with the negotiations with the IMO on this matter.

The Deputy should withdraw the comment that I am refusing somehow to provide information. She should not create the impression that I am trying to hide something. I am not. The Department of An Taoiseach is an open door in respect of any correspondence the Deputy wants to access on this issue or on health. It is important to say that. The Taoiseach is going to address this issue comprehensively later today and answer any questions people have. My apologies, I meant to say the Tánaiste will address any questions.

Are you sure?

Yes.

We must stick to the time allocated. Deputy McDonald had four minutes for her questions and the Taoiseach had four minutes to reply. There is now one minute remaining.

I welcome that all of the documentation will be made public from the Taoiseach's Department and the Department of Health. However, the questions I asked were not for the Tánaiste but for the Taoiseach. When was he informed that this document had been leaked, when did the Tánaiste tell him about it, when did the Tánaiste get the GP document, had he informed other members of Cabinet about it, and so on? I am assuming that the Taoiseach has explored all of these matters with the Tánaiste and others because he has essentially given him a clean bill of health. He has said that these are matters of not best practice. Weasel words if ever I heard them. What I was trying to elicit from the Taoiseach is some sense of how he arrived at the conclusion that there was no criminality involved and that there is really nothing to see here bar a failure to reach best practice. I do not have the scope to record my questions again but I ask that the Taoiseach answer them. He might start with when the Tánaiste informed him that he had, in fact, leaked this document.

First of all, the Tánaiste rang me on Saturday morning on this issue when the article had been published by Village magazine. On the issue around when he first found out, obviously there was a Cabinet meeting, as I said, which approved this matter. The Tánaiste is going to address all those issues but my understanding is that he would have got the document from the Department of Health. That is a matter for the Tánaiste and he will deal with all those questions. That is why he is coming into the House in the first instance.

I was not a member of the previous Government.

You are Taoiseach now.

I know I am, but I am not responsible for what the previous Government did, either from a policy perspective or in any other areas. I want to be clear about that. We formed a new Government to deal with the essential issues facing this country, namely, Covid-19, the economy, keeping our schools open, investing at record levels in health services and dealing with climate change. That is where the Government is going on this.

I have given nobody any clean bill of health. In regard to the language like "not best practice" and "inappropriate", the latter was a word used by the Deputy's party spokesman on health, Deputy Cullinane.

I have said that this was the wrong way to do things. Is the Deputy asserting criminality or has she asserted criminality?

I asked the Taoiseach whether the Attorney General-----

Has the Deputy asserted criminality?

I am asserting-----

The Deputy seems to be asking me whether-----

The Taoiseach is now going over-----

-----there was, in my opinion, criminality.

I asked whether the Attorney General had given the Taoiseach advice.

I want to know what the Deputy is saying. She needs to make up her mind.

I have asked whether the Attorney General has given the Taoiseach advice.

She needs to call it out and stop trying to be a bit-----

Has the Attorney General given the Taoiseach advice? That is the question.

I am going to ask again that we put a stop to the interaction. Can we have the questions put and then answered within the time limit?

They have been put but they have not been answered.

There is no doubt that the political landscape today will be dominated by this issue relating to the Tánaiste. It is a very significant issue. Given the large-scale problems in this country including Covid, job losses, the CervicalCheck tribunal, which I have referenced, and a range of others, that is not good. This issue needs to be dealt with quickly. The public is now drawn back to the time of golden circles, the Galway tent, friends in high places and so on. We had thought we had moved on.

We in the Labour Party are in a slightly different position from that of others in here as we are the only party of the Opposition that has actually served in government. I grant that individual Members of this House have served in government, but we are the only such party. My party colleague, Deputy Howlin, introduced the lobbying legislation which was meant to manage all of these issues. Obviously, it is being ignored.

There is a bit of time before the Tánaiste addresses the House. Deputy Micheál Martin is the Taoiseach now. Will he ask the Tánaiste not to use the lame excuse that he leaked this document to ensure the maximum number of GPs took up the contract, because it does not wash? The Taoiseach has time to ask this of the Tánaiste.

This is not just about the Tánaiste, however. This is also about Deputy Micheál Martin's role as Taoiseach and how he is going to deal with it. It is about competence and how the Taoiseach will deal with this issue over the coming hours and days. I have two real issues. The Taoiseach has said that he had a number of phone calls with the Tánaiste. Will he confirm to the House that he asked the Tánaiste whether he, or anybody who worked for him, had ever done this before? Will the Taoiseach please tell the House whether he asked that question and what the answer was? If he did not ask that question, why not? He is the Taoiseach. I ask him to please tell me that he has asked that question. I am sure the Tánaiste will have answered "No" because, if he has not, the Taoiseach has a fairly significant problem.

As the Taoiseach has acknowledged, what the Tánaiste did was wrong. It was inappropriate. Whatever happens today, that will not change. It was inappropriate. Will the Taoiseach confirm to the House that, because of this, he will sanction the Tánaiste at some level?

I have asked the Tánaiste that question and the answer was "No" and that he had not done something like this before or since. As far as I am concerned, the most important thing when something like this emerges is that there is full accountability to the House. That was my main concern on Saturday. To be fair to the Tánaiste, he had no issue whatsoever with coming before the House to address the issue and to answer any questions that people may have in this regard. It is of a different order to other incidents. I do not know why the Tánaiste sent the GP contract to the National Association of General Practitioners, NAGP, in the way that he did. I do not think that was best practice. It was not appropriate and it was the wrong way to do things. That said, everybody was engaging with the NAGP at some level. Even in this House, the NAGP was lobbying Opposition parties. It wanted to hear what was going on and to be consulted on the GP contract.

Commitments were made that the group would be consulted on this. From what I can gather, that does not appear to have happened in a comprehensive way once the agreement was published. It was published by the IMO in a very detailed way to present to its members. The essentials of it were out there in early April.

Of course, in accordance with the Competition Act 2002, the GPs, as self-employed contractors, would have to decide individually whether to sign up to the agreement that was essentially being offered by the HSE or the Government to the tune of approximately €210 million. Each practice would benefit from additional payments relating to reversal of financial emergency measures in the public interest legislation and the chronic disease management programme, on which we have all actively campaigned for quite some time, as well as various items in the agreement that were published by the IMO. Generally speaking, all GPs are now operating under this and most people would accept it represents an improvement in primary care services. That remains the position.

There are a number of members of this Government who were members of the previous Government. Has the Taoiseach spoken to the other members of the Government on this matter to see if any pressure was put on them to provide this contract, which the IMO indicated would only be provided to its members? Was pressure put on anybody in the Government and who is now sitting with the Taoiseach in government to provide this contract to the NAGP? Has the Taoiseach asked that question? There are members of the previous Government sitting at the Cabinet table with the Taoiseach.

The Taoiseach has not answered my question about the Tánaiste. I asked if he or anybody who worked for him - his advisers - ever did anything like this before or since. It is not just about him but the people who work for him.

We all understand this was wrong and inappropriate. It is accepted by the Taoiseach and it is even accepted by the Tánaiste, to be fair. What level of sanction is the Taoiseach considering, irrespective of what happens later today? Is the Taoiseach considering a sanction now? At least tell us that.

I answered the question on the Tánaiste, who made it very clear to me and the leader of the Green Party, Deputy Eamon Ryan, that he did not do something like this before or since. We take it from this that this applies to his advisers as well. He did not authorise any other type of action like this one relating to the GP contract.

I was not a member of the previous Government. It is an important point to make. I am not answerable for the previous Government's behaviour. We had many policy differences and we fought those in an election. As a result of that election, a new Government was formed involving three parties. That demarcation is very real and important. It would be quite a new precedent if future governments-----

I am not suggesting that.

That seems to be the implication - were to take upon themselves the obligation to start sanctioning members of previous governments for decisions they took. The decisions taken by any government must be accountable to the people in a subsequent election, and indeed that is the way it works. That is a general point I have to make.