Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----reveal the unsatisfactory fact that the Opposition has had to use the Freedom of Information Acts for months to piece together the jigsaw of the decision to select these primary care centres. It is most unsatisfactory. The Government made a commitment to introduce new freedom of information legislation. It has taken us months to get much of the detail, some of which is redacted. The dripping of information relating to the selection of primary care centres is entirely unsatisfactory.

Will the Tánaiste commit the Government to undertaking a sharp inquiry into the primary care centre debacle, with a view to using all the documentation that is now available under freedom of information and questioning the key people involved, so we can get a comprehensive account of how those primary care centres were selected? I ask the Tánaiste to give a commitment to hold such an inquiry. This issue is a distraction for the Dáil. It has been arising since last June and new pieces of information are emerging all the time. Behind the scenes, the Tánaiste must be unhappy with what is happening in this case. A number of his party's Ministers have expressed their disquiet. It is equally unsatisfactory that we must use the freedom of information procedure all the time. The Tánaiste gave me a commitment some months ago that he would publish all the documentation about this, but he did not. I had to wait for months to get it under the Freedom of Information Act.

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