Leo Varadkar's formal apology to the Dáil over his leaking of confidential information to his friend that's a doctor has not been well received by the opposition.
During his speech in the Dail, the Tánaiste said accusations that he had anything to gain by leaking the confidential documents are "without foundation and deeply offensive".
Mr Varadkar has admitted leaking details of a pay deal with the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) to rival union the NAGP.
However, he said he did so in the interest of securing backing for the deal from all groups of general practitioners.
He told the Dail: "I am sorry for the controversy and the annoyance that my actions may have caused. I wanted to use the influence of the Taoiseach's office to secure a new contract for GPs. It would be a big step forward for securing universal health care which I believe in."
He added: "It was a good deal and I wanted it to be universally accepted. I wanted to avoid a repeat of the difficulties we had getting free GP care for under-sixes accepted."
Varadkar has said he received the leaked document from the Department of Health and that one copy was provided to him from the Minister for Health, at the time Simon Harris, and a second copy was provided to him by one of his advisers.
He said the document was requested from him by Dr Maitiu O Tuathail of the NAGP.However, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald feels that Varadkar's apology is extremely weak and that "every alibi advanced by Leo Varadkar and FG ministers has been exposed as spin.
"The Tanaiste's defence has fallen apart this evening. Each and every alibi advanced by Leo Varadkar and FG ministers has been exposed as spin. All correspondence, documents, files and notes relating to this scandal must now be made public," said McDonald on Twitter.
During last night's edition of Prime Time, Eoin Ó Broin, Sinn Féin T.D. for Dublin Mid-West and spokesperson on Housing, Planning & Local Govt, said that he also doesn't believe the Tánaiste's defence, and is asking for all relating documentation to be made public.
"What we want and we want it even more urgently today than we said yesterday, we want every bit of documentation put in the public domain.
"I don't believe the Tánaiste's defence. We want to see every bit of information but there's two other things that I think we need to hear. Why was it that the then Minister For Health didn't think this information should be given to the NAGP and the Taosiecah did. There's another big issue here that nobody has been talking about.
"The current Taoiseach only learns about this story the morning it's about to break while Leo Varadkar knew about this for days, if not longer and didn';t have the coutrteosy to pick up the phone and alert his counterpart in government.
"That's another examples of a government in chaos where the two parties aren't talking to each other, that's not a good way to do business," said Ó Broin.
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