Troublesome period for Leo Varadkar; Official documents regarding the sharing of a GP contract were leaked to another Union

During his tenure as Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar was criticized for illegally providing confidential documents in the health sector to a trade union. Sinn Fein came forward with this serious allegation.

Varadkar’s attempt to fatten up the lame was not successful as his cabinet colleagues also came out against it. The GP agreement with the IMO was illegally shared with the National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP).

Earlier, Varadkar had denied the allegations. Since then, David Cullinan, Sinn Fein’s health spokesman, has come out with a strong critique of the issue. Varadkar was trying to thicken up by saying that the documents were not so secretive or sensitive.

This argument did not materialize when Sinn Fein and others came to the scene saying that this argument could not be accepted.

They pointed out that it was not the public records but the official documents of the Dáil that were leaked.

Varadkar knows inside that this is wrong, and he has to admit it and be clean, Mr Cullinane said.

Sinn Fein leader Louise O’Reilly also said it was “suspicious” that Fine Gael did not understand the need to share official confidential documents.

Undoubtedly, the former NAGP president said that documents related to the GP agreement had been received.

The former president of the NAGP Dr Maitiú Ó Tuathail and the group’s former chairperson, Dr Andrew Jordan, also made that clear in a joint statement.

The documents were believed to have been obtained as part of a government decision. But they also said it would be wrong if a section of GPs did not get it.

In 2018, the National Association of General Practitioners held extensive consultations with the Department of Health and the HSE regarding chronic disease management. The agreement was finalized by the then Prime Minister in mid-April. Those documents should be available to all GPs, they explained.

Minister for Education Norma Foley has said Mr Varadkar needs to outline in the Dáil “the motivation behind what happened, how it happened and when it happened”.  

She also said that Varadkar’s behavior was not good. Green Party, the main party in the front, also demanded Varadkar to give an explanation in this regard.

But Varadkar made it clear in a statement that what he did was not a good thing and could have been done differently.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe defended Varadkar on the issue. He said that all questions would be answered by Varadkar in the Dáil. 

Donohoe explained that the Deputy Prime Minister had done so out of a desire to improve patient services through the new GP agreement and to persuade as many GPs as possible to join the new agreement.