Results 7,921-7,940 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: Sorry, excuse me?
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: No, but it would not be the case that my colleagues would be aware of everything-----
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: -----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...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: 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...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: I can say a circumstance like this never arose before or since.
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: I can only speak for myself. I cannot speak for other people's motivations. I can speak for my motivations, and I have explained-----
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: 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?
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: 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...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: 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...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: To the best of my knowledge, the answer is "No".
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: On a point of clarification, if the Deputy asks me a question about my actions, I can give him a definitive answer, but if he asks me a question about another Minister, Deputy or somebody who worked for me, I cannot give a definitive answer. I can only answer to the best of my knowledge. I am not trying to be evasive. I am not hiding anything. I am just trying to give the Deputy, as best...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: Again, I cannot answer questions on behalf of other people. I think it is evident from all of this affair that Dr. Ó Tuathail, for his own reasons, made out to be closer to me than he was. On this occasion, I shared that document with him in confidence for two reasons. First, the agreement had been done and announced and it had been approved by the Cabinet and I wanted to ensure it...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: The organisation was very effective in 2015 when it came to undermining support for and acceptance of the contract relating to children under six. I provided the document for two reasons: first, because there was a Government commitment to inform, consult and engage it on these talks; and, second, because I wanted to mollify or reduce any opposition to the agreement. I wished to demonstrate...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: I was wrong in the way I went about it. I should have done it differently. I should have brought Dr. Ó Tuathail in and given a full briefing, even if it was line by line or page by page. That is the way it should have been done. I did not do it that way because I knew him and, almost as a shortcut, I did it in the way I did it. I should not have done it that way. I should have set...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: Thank you.
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: As I explained, if I was doing this again, I would do it through official channels. I would perhaps bring Dr. Ó Tuathail in and do a page by page or line by line briefing. What I wanted to do was to share the document with him on a confidential basis to get his opinion on it and see whether he thought it was a good deal. I believed that in sharing it with him, he would come to the...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: The document was not made public. It was not circulated among the NAGP membership or shared widely. It is a document I gave to a person in confidence for the reasons I explained, namely, to try to demonstrate that what had been announced was exactly what was in the document and that there was no reason to oppose it. That was the basis on which I gave it to him. It was not published or put...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: It was none of those things. This was an agreement that had been concluded. It had been published in substance, or at least the salient details had, including all the financial and commercially sensitive information. This agreement had been launched by the HSE and welcomed publicly by me and by the Minister for Health. It had gone to the Cabinet. The Cabinet memo very clearly says that...
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: I have. The first occasion was when I heard the story was breaking, to find out what it was about. The second occasion was when I was preparing my statement, to check the date on which I sent him the document. On the third occasion he contacted me, wanting to know if the NAGP should issue a statement. I said that was up to him and I did not want to direct or advise him.
- General Practitioner Contract: Statements (3 Nov 2020)
Leo Varadkar: I spoke to him once about my statement, to see if I could check the date on which I sent him the document. I still have not been able to find the exact date. As I have said, it was some time between 11 April and 16 April.