Leo Varadkar should be sacked or resign over his leaking of a GP contract, Mary Lou McDonald has claimed.
The Sinn Fein leader has called on Taoiseach Micheál Martin to sack the Tánaiste over the Garda investigation into his leaking of confidential government documents to a mate.
The leader of the opposition has upped the ante in the sizzling controversy by saying that Fine Gael leader and serving Tánaiste, Mr Varadkar, “needs to go” over his leak
The current Minister for Business admitted to the Dáil last November that he had leaked a €210million GP contract marked “confidential” to his friend, Dr Maitiu O Tuathail.
He apologised and survived a motion of no confidence.
Ms McDonald said: "Last November we said that Leo Varadkar should have been sacked by Micheál Martin for a blatant abuse of power while he was Taoiseach and everything that has happened since then has proven that we were correct.”
Since then, the Irish Mirror revealed last month that a full criminal investigation into Mr Varadkar’s actions had been initiated.
And furthermore, we revealed that a senior minister, former Minister for Health, Simon Harris, had faced three hours of questioning from Garda detectives.
Mr Harris subsequently presented a written statement to the gardaí in charge of the probe.
Following the Mirror’s reports last month, Mr Varadkar offered himself up to the gardaí for questioning.
Ms McDonald added: “Last November, we tabled a motion of no confidence in the Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar because we believed that he should have been sacked and everything that has happened since then has proven that we were correct.
"He has only remained in office because Fianna Fáil, the Greens and a number of independents are keeping him there.
“He gave a cock and bull story to the Dáil last November and has been forced to change his story repeatedly as more and more information has come to light.
"He told the Dáil that the confidential document was already in the public domain – that is not true, the Health Minister couldn’t even get the document at the time.
"He told the Dáil that he had received a copy of the document from the Department of Health. However, there are no records as to how he got it and he has changed his story since then.
“This was a political stroke, pure and simple. It was an abuse of power by the then Taoiseach designed to give advantage to a friend. This was about doing favours for insiders. Politically this cannot be tolerated.
“The whole matter is now being investigated by the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Gardaí need to be allowed to do their job.
“However, our position remains as it was in November. The Fine Gael leader needs to go.”
