Varadkar controversy: Donohoe says not 'common practice' to share confidential documents

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar is under fire for sharing a confidential agreement involving the Irish Medical Organisation with the rival National Association of General Practitioners. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/Rollingnews.ie

The finance minister said it is not “common practice” for the Government to share confidential negotiation documents.

However, Paschal Donohoe said the Tánaiste had only shared the Irish Medical Organisation’s GP contract after negotiations had concluded and after the details had been broadly circulated.

Leo Varadkar confirmed on Saturday that he had provided a draft agreement between the Department of Health, the HSE, and the IMO to rival organisation the National Association of General Practitioners, but that he did so when the information was already in the public domain.

Mr Donohoe told RTÉ’s This Week programme that the Tánaiste had acknowledged that the way the information was shared was “not best practice”.

“He’s also made it clear that he will go into the Dáil to answer questions in relation to this,” Mr Donohoe added.

“A key point that was guiding what he did, and our efforts to reach an agreement with GPs at that point, was firstly to try to improve the services available to patients through a new GP contract and secondly to get as many GPs as possible to enrol into the new contract.” 

Asked if it was common for Government to hand over confidential documents, Mr Donohoe said: “It’s not common and that’s why the Tánaiste said what he did yesterday.

“He said very clearly that it wasn’t best practice, he acknowledged it could have been done differently.

“But it’s very important to emphasise that when the information was shared it was after the negotiation had been concluded in relation to the agreement, it was after a press conference had been done on the agreement, and it was after the Government had agreed on the new agreement and the details that we were referring to were being broadly circulated and broadly reported on.” 

He added that he had worked with the Fine Gael leader on “countless negotiations” and that at all times the Tánaiste had been “guided by trying to do the right thing”.

Paschal Donohoe said the Tánaiste had only shared the Irish Medical Organisation’s GP contract after negotiations had concluded and after the details had been broadly circulated. Picture: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

Mr Donohoe said the Taoiseach had spoken to Mr Varadkar about the matter on Saturday, and that Micheál Martin had “outlined his concern in relation to the way the information had been shared”.

The finance minister also said Mr Varadkar was “very aware” of the duties he has to the Dáil to answer questions from opposition parties, and that any questions would “of course be answered”.

Sinn Féin’s health spokesman claimed Leo Varadkar’s actions were “not just informal” they were “inappropriate and wrong”.

David Cullinane said he did not accept the Tánaiste’s explanation and that Mr Varadkar “must come clean” and accept that he should not have handed over the documents.

“I don’t think that it is acceptable that the Tánaiste is hiding behind lame excuses,” Mr Cullinane said.

“The facts for me here are clear — that Leo, as the leader of Fine Gael and Taoiseach at the time, passed on a document to a friend about sensitive negotiations involving hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers’ money”.

“It was clearly a document that was marked confidential.” 

Mr Cullinane added: “He’s hiding behind excuses here and he has to come clean and accept that this was absolutely and completely unacceptable and inappropriate. He talked about informal communications channels. It wasn’t just informal it was inappropriate. It was wrong.” He added that the Tánaiste “knows in his heart that this was wrong”.

Mr Varadkar dismissed a report in Village magazine that he had acted unlawfully as being “both inaccurate and grossly defamatory”.

-With reporting from Press Association