Prime Minister Leo Varadkar sent shockwaves through Ireland when he candidly announced he was \u201cno longer the best person\u201d to lead his\u00a0country. <\/p>\n
The taoiseach took journalists, opposition lawmakers and even members of his own government by surprise with his decision to step down for what he called \u201cpersonal\u201d but \u201cmainly political\u201d reasons. <\/p>\n
The 45-year-old had become a familiar face on the international stage, having made headlines in 2017 when aged 38 he became the youngest prime minister in Irish history. Ireland\u2019s first gay, mixed race leader soon became the face of a new and more liberal Ireland, shepherding in progressive social change through a string of successful referendums. <\/p>\n
He had taken up the role of taoiseach again in December 2022 as part of a job rotation agreed by the coalition government formed after the 2020 general election. <\/p>\n
In recent weeks, Varadkar had drawn praise for his solidarity with the people of Gaza, challenging President Joe Biden over sustained US support for Israel during a stateside visit last week. <\/p>\n
Gary Murphy, Professor of Politics at Dublin City University, said there was a \u201ccertain humility\u201d to the speech, not typically associated with a\u00a0politician often perceived to be \u201caloof\u201d and \u201clacking the common touch.\u201d <\/p>\n
Murphy said \u201ca taoiseach resigning without any pressure from his party to do so is really unprecedented in the Irish state.\u201d <\/p>\n
Even Varadkar seemed to be still catching his breath on Thursday afternoon when he told reporters gathered in Brussels for an EU leaders summit that the decision still hadn\u2019t \u201csunk in.\u201d He tried to dispel rumors that a scandal may be lurking on the horizon, stressing there was \u201cno event\u201d or \u201cone thing\u201d that\u00a0prompted his resignation. <\/p>\n
Despite this, questions\u00a0linger\u00a0over the timing of his decision, less than three months out from local and European elections. His successor, largely tipped to be Higher Education Minister Simon Harris, will need to\u00a0lead the center-right political party, Fine Gael, against a fired-up opposition. <\/p>\n
Leo Varadkar has often been described by commentators as a \u201cman in a hurry,\u201d having scored the country\u2019s top job after less than 10\u00a0years in politics. Following a short-lived career as a doctor, Varadkar rose rapidly to the top, cutting his teeth in\u00a0high-profile jobs as health minister and transport minister. <\/p>\n
After he was appointed taoiseach in 2017, he quickly touted himself as a leader for the people \u201cwho get up early in the morning,\u201d promising to bring financial prosperity and stability to Ireland in the wake of a devastating financial crash. <\/p>\n
And although opposition figures and some commentators branded him a \u201cThatcherite\u201d proponent of neo-liberalism, Murphy insists Varadkar \u201cnever governed like that.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cHis administration, even before [the Covid-19 pandemic] wasn\u2019t shy about spending public money, it was just that they got no political capital or credit,\u201d Murphy said. <\/p>\n
Varadkar\u2019s steady leadership during the pandemic was\u00a0not something to be scoffed at, Murphy added. The Irish government took a more cautious approach to lockdown measures which, though at times unpopular, did culminate in significantly lower case numbers and death rates than its closest neighbor, the United Kingdom. <\/p>\n
He also scored a significant victory with his handling of the Brexit saga, Bray said, pointing towards his success in \u201cbreaking the deadlock around a no-deal Brexit\u201d in 2019. His skill in handling former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson \u201cdid not resonate with the Irish public though, who wanted to hear less about Brexit and more about the solutions to what was a deepening housing and homelessness crisis,\u201d according to Bray. <\/p>\n
Varadkar\u2019s management of the housing crisis in particular will likely be the greatest mark on his legacy. Under both terms as taoiseach, the failure of his government to hit targets for affordable housing has left a generation of young voters unable to purchase homes. <\/p>\n
Under his tenure, Ireland did manage to shed some of the conservative societal norms propagated by the Catholic Church, through referendums legalizing same-sex marriage and lifting an abortion ban. This strong track record came to an end in early March, when a referendum to remove a constitutional reference to a woman\u2019s place being in the home was resoundingly rejected, in a bruising defeat to Varadkar and his government. <\/p>\n
The \u201csheer scale\u201d of the loss has \u201cto have had an impact on his decision to go,\u201d Murphy commented, saying Varadkar may have felt \u201csome responsibility\u201d for that. <\/p>\n
As several political heavyweights, including finance minister and Eurogroup chairman Paschal Donohoe, declined to throw their hat in the ring, the stage is set now for Simon Harris to become the next taoiseach. <\/p>\n
The 37-year-old who rose to prominence during his spell as health minister during the pandemic is considered by many to be a \u201cmirror image\u201d to Varadkar, Murphy said. A more affable and effective communicator however, Harris has built up a large online following through his frequent use of platforms such as Instagram and Tik Tok. <\/p>\n
\u201cSimon Harris has promised to bring energy and vigor to the role, and Fine Gael will be hoping that he can connect them to an increasingly distant electorate: younger voters,\u201d Bray said. <\/p>\n
He will face a galvanized opposition in the form of Irish nationalist party Sinn F\u00e9in, who have been making steady gains since their impressive election success in 2020. The party, led by Mary Lou McDonald, has leveraged the government\u2019s failure to tackle the housing issue in particular, promising the electorate that it has the policies to end the crisis. <\/p>\n
The main question is whether Harris has \u201cthe political substance behind the polish,\u201d Murphy added, saying his \u201cbig challenge\u201d will be to present some ideas that \u201cwill catch the voters\u201d ahead of the next general election, which must take place before March 2025. <\/p>\n\n
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar sent shockwaves through Ireland when he candidly announced he was \u201cno longer the best person\u201d to lead his\u00a0country. The taoiseach took journalists, opposition lawmakers and even members of his own government by surprise with his decision to step down for what he called \u201cpersonal\u201d but \u201cmainly political\u201d reasons. The 45-year-old had <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}