Politics

Leo Varadkar in power: Five highs and five lows through Covid, a housing crisis and Brexit

Outgoing Taoiseach was not immune to gaffes or becoming the centre of the ‘Leo the Leak’ GP contract controversy

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Government Buildings on Wednesday. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Government Buildings on Wednesday. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
Cormac McQuinn's picture
Cormac McQuinn
Wed Mar 20 2024 - 19:57

Leo Varadkar is leaving the stage, resigning as Fine Gael leader and departing following his second stint as Taoiseach in the coming weeks. From his stunning victory in the Fine Gael leadership race in June 2017 and huge popularity in the early months of the pandemic in 2020 to the perma-crises of housing, health and immigration – along with the gaffes – here are five highs and five lows of his time in power.

The Highs

Victory in Fine Gael leadership race

Varadkar’s 2017 leadership bid was devastatingly effective. Several ministers and prominent TDs backed him from the very beginning of the race. The campaign run by his rival Simon Coveney never recovered from this string of endorsements for Varadkar. He won the leadership in June after a campaign that showed Varadkar’s political skills at their sharpest.

A symbol of a more modern, progressive Ireland?

When Varadkar was elected Fine Gael leader, he said it demonstrated that “prejudice has no hold in this Republic”. The son of an Indian immigrant came out as a gay man during the same-sex marriage referendum just two years previously. Recent worrying anti-immigrant protests notwithstanding, Varadkar’s ascent to Taoiseach showed how Ireland became a more modern and progressive society.

Managing Brexit

Fears of a no-deal Brexit reached their peak after Boris Johnson became UK prime minister in 2019. He had promised to scrap the “backstop” aimed at preventing a hard border on the island of Ireland. Amid the deadlock, a meeting was arranged between Varadkar and Johnson at the Wirral in England that October. A deal was struck replacing the backstop with the Northern Ireland protocol with many viewing Varadkar’s intervention as crucial.

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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has told the country that St Patrick’s Day 2020 is a day no one will ever forget. Video: RTÉ
Early pandemic response

As Covid-19 spread, Varadkar was in the US on St Patrick’s Day duties when he announced Ireland would be entering its first lockdown. He asked people to “make enormous sacrifices”, saying many lives could be saved. He said that while the economy would suffer, it would bounce back, people’s lives would return to normal and “we will prevail”. Varadkar, leader of what was then a caretaker government, make similar speeches to a frightened population during the pandemic. By June his satisfaction rating in the first Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll stood at an astonishing 75 per cent. It would not last; it fell to 40 per cent in February 2024, but the high level of public approval for how he steered the country through the early months of the pandemic showed his leadership skills.

[ Analysis: Pandemic was Varadkar’s biggest test as Taoiseach ]

Jobs and the economy

During Varadkar’s premiership, the State reach effective full employment and recorded exchequer surpluses as the country recovered strongly from the economic shock of the pandemic. From 2019 to 2023, spanning Varadkar’s terms as Taoiseach and stint as minister for enterprise, trade and employment, some 350,000 new jobs were created, bringing total employment to an all-time high of 2.6 million. There was only one Budget during Mr Varadkar’s second stint as Taoiseach but it was a giveaway with welfare increases, tax cuts and a range of cost-of-living measures. Despite more recent turbulence, the economy remains in good shape as Varadkar prepares to leave office.

The Lows

‘Leo the leak’ controversy

The controversy around Varadkar’s leaking of a draft GP contract rumbled on for almost two years as his second term as Taoiseach approached. Gardaí launched an investigation after it emerged Varadkar had, in 2019, leaked a copy of the contract agreed with the Irish Medical Organisation to his then friend, Dr Maitiú Ó Tuathail, who was at the time president of the rival group, the now defunct National Association of General Practitioners. Details of the leak emerged in October 2020 but it would not be until July 2022 that Varadkar would learn he would not face criminal charges. During the “Leo the leak” controversy Varadkar consistently maintained that he committed no crime and said the allegations against him were “false” and were “politically motived”, though he did apologise for “errors of judgment”.

Varadkar versus Tony Holohan

In October 2020 Varadkar, then tánaiste to Fianna Fáil taoiseach Micheál Martin, heavily criticised the State’s then medical officer Dr Tony Holohan during an appearance on Claire Byrne’s RTÉ television programme. Varadkar hit out at how the Government had been told to shut down for a second time during the Covid-19 pandemic “without prior consultation”. He went further, criticising members of the National Public Health Emergency Team, the team that advised Government on public health guidelines during the pandemic, saying that “none of them would have to tell somebody that they are losing their job, and none of them would have to shutter a business for the last time”. He later said that it was “not right for me to make personalised criticisms of members of Nphet” and “not fair” to question their motivations and their understanding about how their decisions impacted on people”.

Permacrises in housing and health

The housing crisis preceded Varadkar’s time as Taoiseach but it will continue long after he is gone. During his time in office, the numbers of people living in emergency accommodation has increased, while house prices and rents have risen. The pandemic halted construction for a time and the Coalition can point to progress with the supply of new homes increasing. But the buck stops with Varadkar and the crisis remains as he prepares to leave office. Similarly, health remains a black spot on the Government’s record; there have been record levels of overcrowding at University Hospital Limerick this year, just as they were stresses in the health system when Varadkar was minister for health a decade ago.

Electoral record

Varadkar’s election as Fine Gael leader did not bring the kind of electoral magic the party had hoped for. Fine Gael performed well in the 2019 European Elections; it took five of Ireland’s 13 European Parliament seats but it was downhill from there. Fine Gael failed to win Dáil seats in all four by-elections later that year and in the 2020 general election, the party won 35 Dáil seats, losing 15 seats. The party, under Varadkar, failed to retain Eoghan Murphy’s seat in Dublin Bay South, a Fine Gael heartland, which was won by Labour’s Ivana Bacik in a by-election The overwhelming rejection of the proposed changes to the Constitution in this month’s family and care referendums were the latest electoral blow for Varadkar.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Farmleigh House with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in 2017. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Farmleigh House with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in 2017. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
Gaffes

Many politicians suffer from foot-in-mouth at times and Varadkar is no different. While his love of novelty socks (shown off during a meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau) could be forgiven, the Taoiseach regularly misspoke. He spoke of his “thrill” at being in the location of the Christmas romcom “Love Actually” during his first visit to Downing Street in 2017.

The following year, he tied himself up in knots when he (incorrectly) revealed during a US trip that he had contacted Clare County Council over a proposed wind farm near the then US president Donald Trump’s Doonbeg golf course following a call from Trump himself when Varadkar was minister for tourism. That year, he wrote to pop star Kylie Minogue to ask if he could welcome her to Ireland personally when she was travelling to Dublin for a concert.

An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Varadkar’s partner Matt and friends with Kylie Minogue at the singer’s gig at the 3Arena Photograph: Tiernan Brady/Twitter
An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Varadkar’s partner Matt and friends with Kylie Minogue at the singer’s gig at the 3Arena Photograph: Tiernan Brady/Twitter

In 2023, Varadkar apologised for an “ill-judged” joke about interns in Washington at a function in the US capital. He quipped he was an intern in the city in the last year of Bill Clinton’s presidency “when some parents would have had cause for concern about what would happen to interns in Washington”.

There were red faces in the Varadkar household last year when the Taoiseach’s partner Matt Barrett had to apologise for lighted-hearted social media posts on Instagram while attending the coronation of King Charles III. Barrett posted from inside Westminster Abbey, though guests were told to put their phones away. In one post, Barrett compared Charles’s crown to the sorting hat in the Harry Potter books.