Yesterday afternoon the Taoiseach told the Dáil that he accepted Deputy Leo Varadkar's version of events regarding his leaking of a confidential document to his friend when he was Taoiseach. Yesterday evening Deputy Leo Varadkar, now Tánaiste and leader of Fine Gael, came to the Dáil to give his explanation of why he leaked this confidential and sensitive document to a personal friend and political supporter in April 2019. His defence fell apart.

We learned that the scenario that played out is more serious than any of us could have imagined. Deputy Varadkar's core alibi, that he was operating a strategy to get the National Association of General Practitioners, NAGP, on board in the public interest, was blown out of the water. The claims the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, made on radio, that the Tánaiste's leak was part of an ongoing process of engagement with that organisation, are simply not true. The Minister for Justice misled the public because there was no such process of engagement between the NAGP and the Department of Health. There was direct engagement when Deputy Leo Varadkar's friend, the president of the NAGP, requested and was given a confidential document. Similarly, the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, claimed on RTÉ news that the Tánaiste's actions were not so serious after all because no amendments had been made to the leaked confidential document. This is also absolutely untrue. The truth is that the document leaked by Deputy Varadkar was not the final document and amendments were made by the time the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, voted on the contract on 19 May 2019. As such, the Tánaiste's claim that he was acting in the public interest has been exposed as absolute spin. This was a dig-out for a friend and a political ally whose organisation was in free fall and who needed the information contained in the contract to try to fight for his organisation's survival.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach told the Dáil that the Tánaiste's leaking of this document was a one-off event and that it was not part of a pattern of behaviour. He said the Tánaiste had assured him that something like this had never happened before and that he accepted that assurance. However, on the floor of the Dáil yesterday evening, the Tánaiste admitted very clearly that he has broken Cabinet confidentiality in the past. The Taoiseach clearly was not aware of that. He is aware of it now. I want to know if he has asked the Tánaiste about this. Can he establish what information the Tánaiste has leaked before?

We also discovered on the floor of the Dáil that the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, had also been approached by the Tánaiste's friend looking for the same document. Was the Taoiseach aware of this fact or did the Tánaiste fail to give him the full facts? Will the Taoiseach tell us what on earth is going on here? It seems that members of Fine Gael in the Government are providing the public with wrong information and perhaps providing the Taoiseach with no information. The truth is that this is a very Fine Gael thing - government by who one knows. Thousands of struggling families are wondering if the reason they did not get an extension to their mortgage break is that another Fine Gael friend and former Minister of State, Brian Hayes, now represents the banks. I have no doubt that people in businesses being ripped off on insurance costs will scratch their heads and wonder when they see another former Fine Gael Minister of State and friend, Michael D'Arcy, the Minister of State who was supposed to take on the insurance industry, jump ship and become a lobbyist for big finance. This is the politics of the cosy club, of favours for friends. I want to know what the Taoiseach is going to do about it, because the story is not over.

The Taoiseach promised yesterday that all documents relating to this matter would be released. That needs to happen immediately. We need the full paper trail. Will the Taoiseach speak to the Attorney General to establish, for the avoidance of doubt, that the then Taoiseach did not in fact break the law?

When I spoke to the House yesterday evening, I made it very clear that I believe that what the Tánaiste did when he was Taoiseach was not best practice, was inappropriate, was the wrong way to deal with that issue and was the wrong thing to do. To be fair to the Tánaiste, he had no issue with coming before the House. He has come into the House, addressed the issue and answered questions for a quite considerable period of time. He explained in detail what happened and his motivations behind what happened. He accepted that his actions were an error of judgment and he has apologised. As far as I am concerned, the fact that he has acknowledged that it was an error of judgment and that he has apologised is important. He dealt with the issue at some length yesterday. That is important. I accept his acknowledgment of an error of judgment and his apology.

The issue is not as Deputy McDonald has portrayed it in the sense that the contract with the GPs of Ireland, all of whom are independent contractors at the end of the day, involves very significant improvements, not just to the lot of GPs but to chronic disease management for General Medical Services, GMS, patients, something all Members of this House have been pushing for. It was a significant advance in that regard. The essentials of the agreement were out there as soon as the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, published a press release stating it had reached an agreement with the HSE and the Government which included the reversal of cuts under the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest, FEMPI, Acts, the provision of €80 million for chronic disease management in the community, better value in prescription of medicines, and provision for disadvantaged communities. All of that was outlined in considerable detail in the IMO document. That is the big picture.

This was not some sort of private commercial project that would benefit a person materially or monetarily. Clearly that is not the case and that should be acknowledged.

The Deputy keeps raising the issue of whether the law has been broken. I have made my own assessment in that regard but I am not a lawyer. Equally, I have no intention of embroiling the Attorney General or anybody else. The Attorney General advises the Government with regard to its agenda. The clear agenda of the Government is to make sure we can bring society through a global pandemic that has enormous implications for people's health, lives and livelihoods. The Government wants to deal, once and for all, with climate change and the existential challenge of climate change effectively and in a transformative way. It wants to invest in housing and to deal with homelessness and the capacity of young people to afford to buy their homes and to provide a far greater degree of social housing next year and in the years thereafter. Above all, the Government wants to invest in education, ensure we keep schools open and work with school communities to do that. That is what the Government is about. It is also about transforming North-South relations through the shared island initiative. Those are the issues that I, as Taoiseach, am focused on and driving forward.

The Tánaiste came before the House yesterday. In my view, he was accountable to the House for the actions he took when he was Taoiseach of the previous Government. On the issue of documentation, yesterday I read out a letter that was copied to the Department of the Taoiseach during the time of the previous Government. It related to GMS issues and not the specific issue at hand. I asked the Secretary General of my Department to trawl through the Department and that is the one that has come through at this stage. That is it. The Department keeps all documentation. Apparently there is no great cache of documentation in the Department relating to the issue.

May I again make it clear that I wish to see all the documentation? I am not surmising there is a vast quantity of it. On the contrary, I am asserting that there is very little documentation because the basis for the explanation that the Taoiseach, astonishingly, accepts from the Tánaiste is that he was acting in the public interest and on the basis of a deep and enduring level of contact with the NAGP. That is simply factually incorrect. I would not thank the Tánaiste for appearing before the Dáil and taking questions. I do not think any Member should get a round of applause for so doing.

I respectfully suggest that the agenda of the Government is hugely dependent on public confidence and trust and a sense that when a former Taoiseach and serving member of Cabinet is found to have leaked a confidential document to his friend, when that is established as a matter of fact, and when that same individual states on the record of the Dáil that he has before leaked confidential information from Cabinet, the people expect action to be taken.

The Deputy's time is up.

That is my view. I ask the Taoiseach again what he proposes to do. Will he ask the people simply to take all of this on the chin? Deputy Leo Varadkar's alibi was comprehensively dismantled on the floor of the Dáil. It bears no credibility.

Deputy, please. The time is up.

What is the Taoiseach going to do? What contact will he have with a man who has told the House that he routinely leaks from the Cabinet? Is that okay with the Taoiseach?

First, I was not a member of the previous Government and I am not accountable for its actions.

Fianna Fáil fully supported the previous Government.

All governments are accountable to the people. Deputy Mattie McGrath supported the accession of the former Minister, Shane Ross, to power. He regretted it later, but that is the role he played in the formation of the previous Government.

Fianna Fáil fully supported the previous Government. The Taoiseach should accept its mistakes too.

Through the Chair, I make the point that governments are accountable to the people in general elections. The previous Government was. A new Government has been formed and we have very clear approaches in terms of both the policy agenda of the Government and the procedural dimension to the new Government. The three party leaders in government meet regularly in regard to the agenda at Cabinet and issues of policy and procedure. We are very clear in that regard.

Leaky Leo.

With the greatest of respect to the Deputy and everybody else, I happened to read the other night a wonderful article, which kept me up somewhat late and which I would recommend to Deputy McDonald, published in GQ online, by the investigative journalist James Harkin. It is an excellent piece of journalism and is called "Unmasking Stakeknife". It tells an incredibly sordid story of the IRA and Sinn Féin and the work of British intelligence agencies and the infiltration of both.

Pathetic.

Deal with the leaks.

The Taoiseach's time is up.

The point is that-----

Deputy Mac Lochlainn should read the article. If I were a member of his party and movement, I would be looking around me every day, wondering who my friend is.

No danger of that.

The Taoiseach, without interruption, please.

The reaction is interesting. Sometimes it is dangerous to stand on the high moral ground. That is where Deputy McDonald has positioned herself in respect of this issue and people's alleged connections. It is a very dangerous place to be and she and her movement should approach it with a greater degree of humility. That is all I will say.

I think the Tánaiste came in-----

Is the Taoiseach threatening me?

No, absolutely not.

Taoiseach, please. The time is up.

I am simply saying to the Deputy that the high moral ground is a dangerous place to be.

No danger of the Taoiseach-----

There absolutely is in terms of Sinn Féin and its friends.

The Tánaiste came into the House yesterday and apologised for an error of judgment. I do not know where else the Deputy wishes to take the matter. He apologised for an error of judgment that was made during the term of the previous Government in respect of an agreement with GPs that, in essence, had been published. The essentials of it had been published and the Deputy knows that. She tried to say it was not.

The Taoiseach's time is up.

The essentials of the deal were published long before any document was sent to the president of the NAGP. The essentials had to do with chronic disease management, the reversal of FEMPI and other areas.

Incorrect information has been entered into the record of the Dáil.

I ask Deputy McDonald to resume her seat. I appeal to party leaders, including the Taoiseach, please, to have some regard for the order of the House that sets out time limits for these contributions. There are no exceptions in that regard.