That is not what I said.

No, Deputy.

No, Deputy, that is a misrepresentation.

No.

The deal was done, we had achieved it and we had got acceptance from the GPs. We then moved on to the next issues on the agenda.

No, Deputy. If it had been at issue at the time and had I been asked about it, I would have put it on the record. I would of course have told the truth and given an honest answer to any question had it arisen at the time. I have heard the term "leak" being used, and I will not dispute anyone who wants to use that term in regard to this issue. Generally, however, a leak involves putting something into the public domain. Somebody, for example, gives something to a journalist and that then ends up in a newspaper or on…

I am not.

No, Deputy. When one is in government, a long list of people threaten to campaign against you. I guarantee the Deputy that. There is a very long list of people. If there is a live issue about which people feel passionate, national or local, one meets groups which will say that if they do not get their way and if what they want is not done, they will campaign against the Government. Sometimes they even put up candidates, and that is just part of the experience. I hope that Deputy Pringle will have the opportunity to…

I do not think anyone in this House seriously believes that Fine Gael got an extra MEP or 20 extra councillors because of anything to do with this.

When local elections and European Parliament elections happen people make their judgment based on the candidate and probably the main reason we gained a seat in the European elections was the quality of our candidates with people like Mairead McGuinness, for example, getting a massive vote, and a new candidate like Maria Walsh getting elected. With regard to gaining an additional 20 council seats, people look at their local councillor and that is one of the reasons they vote the way they do, or they vote based on t…

It is a fair question but I do not know. I know the right answer is-----

I cannot point to a date. I know the Deputy is trying to imply that I only decided this was an error of judgment when it entered the public domain but I do not think that would be fair. The truth is that I did not think about it for months and months. There are lots of things on one's plate as Taoiseach and as party leader.

It did not contact me personally. It sent an email to my office in the week previously, asking if I had given a document to a different doctor.

I did not reply.

No I did not, not at that point. It was not until the article was published, which was the Friday night, or whatever.

What I was trying to do was right which was, as I explained earlier, to demonstrate that what was in the terms of agreement, in the 110 page document, was what had been substantially announced already and that it was a good agreement for GPs, for patients, for the health service in general, and that it was something that it should not oppose or be against.

I do not know. I have not seen any of that.

I believe the person who Deputy Connolly describes as the whistleblower was one of those people. I think that those messages were deplorable too, but I had never seen them until the last couple of days. They were not for me to anyone, they were between third parties, including people I did not know and had never met. I can be accountable for my actions, my messages and what I say, but I cannot be accountable for other people. The Deputy was right to say they were rival organisations but that is not the full context…

I do not think that assessment is correct. The reason we concluded that agreement with the IMO not the NAGP, at a cost to the taxpayer of €210 million, was because we wanted to. We thought it was the right thing to restore funding to general practice to reverse FEMPI, to make it viable again, to stop the haemorrhage of young doctors from our country, and especially to bring in a chromic disease management programme at a cost of €80 million. That is why we did it. It was the right thing to do. It was not about buyin…

I thank Deputy O'Reilly for raising this very important issue. The CervicalCheck tribunal is being established in good faith by Government, honouring a commitment made by Government after the Meenan report of 2018. It is being established as an alternative to court for those who want it where cases cannot be settled by mediation or negotiation, which is of course the preferred solution and has happened in many cases but is not always possible, especially when there is a dispute about the facts and whether or not th…