First gay taoiseach, who won social-reform victories and proved wily amid Brexit, faced uncertain future
he smuggled fireworks back into the republic to set off some illicit bangs – but it is only now that he has sent a boom echoing across Ireland.Nobody saw it coming; not his party colleagues in Fine Gael, not his coalition colleagues in Fianna Fáil or the Greens, not the media. Yet there he stood on the steps of Government Buildings in Dublin on Wednesday making an emotional“I believe this government can be re-elected,” he said.
Growing up as a GP’s son in a middle-class Dublin suburb, young Leo declared, at the age of eight, an ambition to become health minister. He studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin and joined Fine Gael, a centre-right party. Outspoken about tax cuts and welfare reform, some called him “Tory boy”. In addition to Germany’s Iron Chancellor, he revered Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary.
Despite backing a failed 2010 coup against Enda Kenny, the leader of Fine Gael, when Kenny was elected taoiseach the following year, he made Varadkar minister for transport, tourism and sport, and then health.
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