Vol. 541 No. 2
604 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health and Children if he will make a statement on recent news reports that key sections of the report dealing with the development of general practice had been omitted from two copies of the document released by his Department under the Freedom of Information Act, 1997. [22106/01]
The document in question originated with a review group established by the health board chief executive officers and it was made available to my Department in September 2000. Consistent with my Department's overall approach to transparency, and with the agreement of the review group, this document was made available to the public at the earliest opportunity. However, prior to placing the document in the public domain, my Department was advised by the secretariat to the review group that an action plan which had been an appendix in earlier drafts of the report had been detached because it was no longer relevant. Many of the dates indicated in the action plan had passed. Accordingly, my officials were asked to detach this out of date material from copies of the report in their possession and this was done to avoid confusion and to ensure that the most up to date version of the report was available. The integrity and completeness of the report were not compromised.
