-----that the agreement had been made. It was launched by the HSE. It was then welcomed by me and by the Minister, Deputy Harris, at an event at a primary care centre on the Navan Road. It is always the case that an agreement, even after it has been made, even after engagement has been concluded, can be changed.

I think it would depend on the circumstances, but this was not done by an official. It was done by me as a Minister, as Taoiseach, as Head of Government. I took the decision to do that.

An official did not do this. This is something-----

Let me explain the answer.

A Minister, as a member of Government, is the one who makes decisions. We had made a commitment to keep them engaged and informed of the process and the outcome of negotiations. I was honouring that political commitment and Government decision that was made. An official could only have done this if he or she had been directed to do it by a Minister. If he or she were not directed to do it, it would be different. If he or she were directed, it would have been okay.

If he or she were not directed, yes.

If he or she were not directed by a Minister to do it, but the Minister in this case and the Prime Minister or chief Minister in this case was me, and I was doing this on foot of a Government decision and honouring a commitment made by the Government. I could have instructed an official to do it. I did not, but I could have.

Sorry, excuse me?

No, but it would not be the case that my colleagues would be aware of everything-----

-----that I would do as Taoiseach or as a Deputy. That is not the way our lives work. It is certainly not the way Government works. One is not able to tell everyone of everything one does on every given day. It is a fair question that people have asked as to why I did not discuss it with the Minister for Health at the time. The truth is that, like many things, it is probably because events were moving on. This was done. This deal was going to be ratified and it was going to be going through. I was looking at the ot…

I can. As I think I explained earlier, a circumstance like this never arose before. If it was a commercial contract, there are particular rules around that, and Ministers do not have access to those contracts. If it was a pay deal or a pay agreement with a union in the normal sense, it would have been published immediately or within days. In circumstances like this, I can say that this did not happen before and has not happened since. However, there are occasions when I think anybody who is in government will show …

I can say a circumstance like this never arose before or since.

I can only speak for myself. I cannot speak for other people's motivations. I can speak for my motivations, and I have explained-----

I do not want to express an opinion on other people's motivations, and most of those people I do not know at all. So how can I express my view?

All I can do is explain my motivation. The NAGP was an unusual organisation with many different players in it. To my mind - perhaps I was mistaken - Dr. Ó Tuathail was one of the decent people in that organisation. He was the president of it. I was sending it to him in confidence, asking him to see it, demonstrating to him there was nothing in it worth opposing and trying to avoid a repeat of 2015. That was my motivation.

Not in detail. Certainly, I did not know it was going to have the difficulties it had subsequently - the financial irregularity and so on. I did recall that for a long period, even up to then, it was a relatively large organisation. Notwithstanding all that, it had well over 1,000 members. We all remember during the period of the medical cards for the under six-year-olds, the instances it had in places like south Tipperary, south Dublin and other places where it actively encouraged and succeeded in getting GPs not …

I was not aware that it was in such difficulty and I am not sure how many people were at the time. It emerged in weeks that it was in serious difficulty. What I did know was that it had hundreds, if not thousands, of members who were GPs and had been very influential. The same would apply to any representative body, NGO, or union. One operates with them on the basis that they have a membership, one does not necessarily know their internal difficulties.

I accept, as I said in my statement, that this is not the way I should have gone about this. It was a document that I shared on a confidential basis with the president of the NAGP, an organisation that represented hundreds, if not thousands, of GPs. I wanted to get them on board, or at least that they would not oppose it and to demonstrate to it that there was nothing in it that had not publicly been announced. I accept the way I went about this was not right. I was mistaken in that regard and I should have done it…

A friend, yes, not a close friend. He is someone who turned up at one event during the time I was running for leader of Fine Gael. He is also someone who since then organised a rally outside the Dáil on Molesworth Street-----

-----that many Members attended, where he said -----