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Speaking My Mind

Leo Varadkar

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To the Fine Gael team in the Dublin West constituency, and to all the people who trusted me with their vote. Without you, none of this would have been possible. Thank you.

‘It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.’

Theodore Roosevelt

Prologue

I was eight, at the local polling station with Mum. The general election of February 1987. We were standing in a sort of plywood cubbyhole with a high shelf.

‘Can I watch?’ I asked.

I stood on tiptoe as she pencilled in numbers carefully, then checked her preferences.

Amazing.

‘Do you want to help?’

Mum let me fold the filled-out paper and I helped her push it into the ballot box.

‘Great little assistant you’ve got there,’ the polling clerk said, winking.

I’d been excited to see posters going up. There’d been canvassers at the door for weeks, each explaining why theirs was the party to vote for. I’d read every leaflet. It seemed almost magical, how voting could transform those ordinary people into leaders.

I started to think about what it would be like if I could be a politician one day. The thought of knocking on doors and engaging with strangers was scary, but I could imagine working in the Dáil, which I’d seen on the news, and debating on radio and TV.

Looking back, I can see this early obsession was a little . . . eccentric?

I also played with Lego and train sets like any other kid, but I can barely remember when politics didn’t fascinate me. Perhaps it was partly because, as Mum and Dad both worked long hours, the most time we spent together was watching the news after dinner; my sisters were older and doing their own thing. My parents had a big interest in everything going on in Ireland and around the world, though they weren’t active in politics. They liked it when I knew what

was going on too and could chime in over the lamb chops and mint sauce.

I was allowed to stay up later than most of my friends to watch the news – usually on the BBC rather than RTÉ – and sometimes even Today Tonight, the politics and current affairs show. I’d regularly be in bed as late as ten, or even half past, earning me serious bragging rights at school. In bed, before drifting off to sleep, I might listen to the news on BBC Radio 4. In contrast, I was also getting Dublin news from a local presenter, Chris Barry, where people would phone in to complain about everything from the height of their neighbours’ hedges to whether hanging was too good for sex offenders. I was probably exposed to things that were too advanced for a kid still in primary school, but the rows were entertaining and eye-opening. Sometimes I’d even catch Radio Sweden’s English-language news. I always wanted to understand what the world looked like to people beyond our little island.

Back then, anywhere ‘abroad’ seemed much farther than it does now. People feared nuclear war, and the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 – which didn’t involve war but featured both nuclear power and the dreaded Iron Curtain – had only added to those fears. Like every other child of my generation, I’d seen the animated disaster film When the Wind Blows, which had filled my head with terrifying spectres. Presumably because everyone was talking about it and watching it on the news, I remember being aware of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev meeting in Reykjavík later that year, and knowing it was important.

Lining up for class the day before the US presidential election between George Bush and Michael Dukakis in 1988, I asked my friend Lee, ‘Who do you want to win?’

Fortunately, he knew what I was talking about. Lee said he liked Dukakis better because Bush was ‘older’, and he reckoned Dukakis looked more fun.

As the bell rang and we started filing into school, I said I was still on the fence but thought Bush probably had the edge. The wisdom of nine-year-olds.

P ar T o N e

Young Fine Gaeler

1979–2011

A child of the suburbs

Apart from an unusual obsession with politics, I was an ordinary child of suburbia. I was born in January 1979, the last of three children. My sisters Sophie and Sonia were eight and four when I came along. We lived in Roselawn, in the more affluent end of Blanchardstown in west Dublin. Roselawn was newly developed, with few housing estates beyond ours and the countryside, with its stud farms, cattle and crops, close by. The neighbourhood was largely composed of young families and was typical of 1980s Ireland – most of the married women with children stayed at home and most of the men, if they had jobs during the recession, went to work. There was one unmarried man on our street, and one or two rented houses. Everyone else was a homeowning family. There were fewer cars then, so it was easy for children to play in the street, and most of us did.

My dad, Ashok, was a doctor, and our garage had been converted for him to use as his surgery. He had originally specialised as a paediatrician, but my mum – Miriam – encouraged him to go into general practice. Being a nurse, Mum was well placed to manage a private surgery.

Anyone who’s grown up with a family business knows that when exactly Dad and Mum are working, and when they’re not, can be vague. And the boundaries between ‘home’ and ‘workplace’ are permeable. Patients knocked on our front door, and Mum opened it. Our living room served as a waiting room.

We had just one phone line, and mobiles effectively didn’t exist. ‘Get off the phone!’ Mum would say, almost hourly until bedtime.

‘Someone might need to ring for an appointment!’ We weren’t allowed to learn musical instruments in case practising scales annoyed the patients. And – this still stings! – we couldn’t have a pet in case one of the patients was afraid of animals or allergic.

Dad did Saturday surgeries, evening surgeries, and house calls most nights. We kids helped however we could. He usually finished around half seven, and then my job was to help Mum file patient charts. I hated this. It was mind-numbingly boring, and I wanted to watch TV.

‘But you’re so good at it, Leo,’ Mum would say. I devised a colourcoded system that made it a little quicker and easier. But I still hated it.

And so it’s always seemed completely normal to me for work to bleed into personal life, such that it’s impossible to disentangle the two.

Primary school – St Francis Xavier, the local national school – was a happy place. I have fond memories of my teachers: Mrs McCarthy, who took me from junior infants to second class; Mrs Murphy, who taught me in third and fourth; and TP Parker, who took fifth and sixth. It was a typical parish school of the time: prayers at the start and end of the day, grace before lunch, an altar in the classroom every May, and a statue of St Francis in the main reception.

My sisters and I were expected to do our best. ‘If you have a good education,’ Mum said, ‘you can do whatever you want. You can be a barrister, an engineer, or even a doctor like your father.’

I took school seriously and did my homework diligently, consulting the Childcraft encyclopaedia, sometimes reading whole entries just for fun. I enjoyed being good at maths, loved geography and history, and relished most writing assignments, though I hated writing short stories.

‘Just use your imagination,’ the teacher would say. ‘You can go anywhere in your mind!’ I’d chew my pencil and stare at the page. Though I enjoyed reading stories, I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to write something untrue. What was the point?

The essay I hated most was ‘What I Did on my Summer Holidays’, trotted out on the first day of the autumn term every year. I could never think of anything that would be interesting enough to impress. My maths copies were festooned with gold stars, but my English copybooks . . . not so much.

I enjoyed reading in my room. I graduated from Enid Blyton to Roald Dahl, and then to Tolkien. The local library was on our street, which was wonderful. Television was fun too: Children’s BBC and The Den with Zig and Zag. As the third child in the family, and a boy, I was given more freedom than my sisters. TV shows like Dallas and Dynasty weren’t off limits. I loved the complex, lurid storylines (‘You lied to me my whole life and let me sleep with my cousin!’), the declarative opening music, the big personalities, and the glimpses of a glamorous lifestyle far away.

It took me time to feel confident around new people. I’d hang back, waiting to be introduced rather than pushing myself forward. I had a small number of close friends in primary school: Conor, Lee, Derek and Eoin. My friend from the street, Brian, went to a Church of Ireland school. The other kids and I played lots of games, but I had no interest in playing, or even watching, sports.

Dad was raised Hindu and Mum was Catholic, but they weren’t religious. Statistics show religious observance was already in decline in Ireland, but everyone else seemed to go to Mass, well, religiously. However, we rarely attended Mass – just Easter and Christmas – and never any Hindu religious events. For the Varadkars, Sundays weren’t for church. They were about having a lie-in and going to the local shop to buy chocolate, our weekly treat.

By the late 1980s, the seeds of social change were sprouting in Ireland. In 1986, when I was seven, Ireland held a referendum on divorce. Divorce had been legal in India since the nineteenth century, and both my parents had lived and worked in England, where they’d met when working at the same hospital, Wexham Park, in Slough. They knew the sky wouldn’t fall in if people could change their minds about being married, so they were both in favour. They were bitterly disappointed when the referendum failed.

My sisters and I made our First Holy Communion and Confirmation alongside our classmates. If there was one thing our parents did believe in, it was fitting in. That’s what they’d done in England. And perhaps because Dad was Indian, and us kids were of mixed heritage – making us ‘different’ in other ways – fitting in seemed all the more important.

Being half-Indian didn’t impinge on me much. I didn’t learn Hindi or Marathi or know much about Indian traditions. I felt indignant when people suggested my siblings and I must be exempt from studying Irish. We ate Irish food. Dad was one of those rare Hindus who liked beef. He had assimilated to Irish cultural norms, and with no internet or easy international phone calls back then, he spoke with his family infrequently, though letters on airmail paper – tissue-thin, the envelopes festooned with colourful Indian stamps – periodically arrived. The only really Indian thing we did was drive to the southside occasionally to eat at one of the few Indian restaurants Dad felt was good enough, usually Eastern Tandoori in Deansgrange.

‘Eat this,’ Dad would mutter, proffering a samosa. ‘This tastes almost like in India.’

I’m sorry now I didn’t take more interest in my Indian background and that Dad didn’t have time to teach me the language. The little Ganpati (also known as Ganesh) statue on my mantelpiece today – an emblem of the elephant-headed god of new beginnings, intellect and the arts, among other things, acquired on one of my very few trips to India – is a sad reminder of that regret. Still, having both those traditions in the background – and my Indian heritage written all over my face – contributed to an early understanding that there are many types of people who can work together, even when they don’t agree on everything.

Mum grew up in Dungarvan in Waterford. Her father, my grandad, started out with a haulage and oil distribution business. When that went well, he bought a substantial farm. He and Nana lived in a large bungalow with a Good Room, featuring a three-piece suite, well- polished coffee tables, an imposing grandfather clock and – thrillingly – a globe that opened to reveal a bottle of whiskey

and cut-glass tumblers. They had a Rolls-Royce – a local first – and Nana wore fur coats and expensive-looking shoes to Mass. Having pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, they invested heavily in education for their daughters. Mum and her sister went to an excellent boarding school in Dublin: Holy Faith, Glasnevin. Their brother John, destined to inherit, stayed at home to work the farm and learn from Grandad.

Throughout my childhood, we visited Mum’s family regularly. A highlight of every summer was when the barley was cut ahead of being sold to the Jameson distillery. There were rides on Grandad’s combine harvester, and opportunities to build things with straw bales with my cousins, Julie and Tom, who were close to me in age. We spent most Christmases there, which meant sharing a room with sisters or cousins, and that Mum had to pack Santa’s gifts in the car, blowing the surprise earlier than she might have liked.

Sometimes Nana reminisced about the first time Mum brought Dad home to visit, to announce they were engaged. ‘I didn’t know whether he’d be brown or navy blue!’ she’d laugh. It would never have occurred to her, or anyone else at the time, that those words might be construed as racist, which she certainly was not. She was a very open-minded woman, who had welcomed her son-in-law from India into the family, even though she’d never travelled farther from home than Dublin.

Then she’d relate how Grandad had gone to a solicitor to consult whether it was okay for his daughter to marry an Indian. He’d been advised that a Hindu was acceptable. I’m sure Dad being a doctor helped them accept him, along with the fact he’d agreed to raise his children as Catholics. They got married in 1971.

When I was about ten, we moved to a new, bigger house in the same area. This allowed the surgery to be completely separate, so we no longer had patients waiting in our living room. The practice got busier too. Our new road was bustling, the surgery more visible, and the suburb was expanding.

I moved to King’s Hospital – a Church of Ireland fee- charging

school – for secondary. Eight years earlier, Sophie had been about to start secondary at a fee-charging girls’ school when Mum learned it didn’t offer physics or chemistry. When Mum protested that Sophie needed them to study medicine, the principal nun shrugged, saying maybe Sophie should write children’s stories instead. Mum was outraged and signed her up for King’s Hospital, where she thrived. Having herself gone to a private school, for Mum it was the obvious choice. If it meant we couldn’t afford other things, then so be it.

Attending King’s Hospital was tough at first, as most of my friends had progressed seamlessly into local secondaries, but Brian from our old road went there too, and we settled in together. The students started every day with a brief service in the chapel and were occasionally expected to attend important Church of Ireland religious ceremonies.

I was still studious, but not an angel. I got into trouble occasionally, notably for selling illegal fireworks I’d bought in the city centre to classmates who were boarders and couldn’t get their own. I’d always loved fire – looking at flames in the fireplace, sticking my finger in a candle flame to see how hot it was, and once, as a very small boy, getting in trouble when my friend Paddy and I lit a fire in his garden shed. Inevitably, my illegal firework racket was discovered, and I was told off. (I remain fond of fire and fireworks and love to light candles at home. I still hold my hand over the candle, to my partner Matt’s great irritation: ‘You’re singeing your finger hair! The smell is awful!’)

My family rarely went into the city centre, but now I could get the bus on my own and mooch around the busy streets, I started to love it: the big buildings, the lights, the shops and cafés. All the excitement that was missing from respectable Blanchardstown.

Finding my tribe

Because I wasn’t good at sports, when my classmates were playing hockey or rugby I was often in the school library reading the papers. When I was about thirteen, Dad’s friend Mervyn – a Jewish American academic – gave me all his old copies of The Economist. Proudly, I stacked them high under my desk. I read all the articles about international affairs and politics, mostly skipping the technology section and the book reviews. Like the encyclopaedias I’d enjoyed consulting before, the magazines offered a window onto the wider world. I’ve never wanted to be anything but Irish, but I’ve always loved knowing about other places. It was exciting, learning about how Ireland was different to elsewhere – and how it was the same. The issues I heard grown-ups worrying about – mortgages, crime, taxes – were all issues in other places too.

At thirteen, I was spending more time alone than most kids. Partly because lots of my friends were into sports and I wasn’t, but also because I’d always felt comfortable in my own company, able to find companionship in the printed word. I was never lonely, and I was increasingly comfortable talking to adults. When my parents had friends over for dinner, I’d engage them in conversation about the economy or foreign policy.

I remember finding the 1992 debate about the Maastricht Treaty exciting. Ireland, a small country, would become ever more integrated in the EU , but only if the referendum passed. The airwaves were filled with animated discussion about it. The government was a coalition of Fianna Fáil and Labour, under Albert Reynolds as Taoiseach. The other main parties, Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats,

supported the referendum, but the Democratic Left, Sinn Féin and the Green Party opposed it. People who were strongly against abortion worried it might open the door to legalisation. If it passed, all the citizens of Europe would use the same currency, and increasingly have the same opportunities. It seemed a chance for Ireland to become more influential. I liked that.

By fourteen or fifteen I was beginning to understand how everyday people could write themselves into the history books. I was sure Ireland had done the right thing by joining the EU . It seemed that many of the good things happening in the 1990s originated in Ireland becoming part of something bigger than itself.

People were even talking about a way out of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Our country, which had suffered from collective low self- esteem for what seemed like forever, was doing well economically and socially. For the first time, lots of people were coming from overseas in search of opportunity. It was an exciting time to be young and Irish.

I already hated the idea of walls and barriers keeping apart people who could be stronger together, and the belief that things like language can’t belong to everyone. Being biracial has given me an instinctive understanding of how important things like language, art and tradition are to someone’s identity. I’m glad my parents sent me to the Gaeltacht to learn Irish, although I never mastered dancing the Ballaí Luimní; I hated how I loomed over the others and couldn’t get my gangly legs to move to the same rhythm.

The Progressive Democrats were making waves then. Many saw them as new and refreshing. So did I. When they were founded in the mid-1980s it was a time of high unemployment. Children were leaving my class because their parents had decided to start new lives in England, Canada or America. It seemed obvious that those places ran their economies better than we did. We Varadkars saw ourselves as a middle-class family, but that didn’t mean we saw ourselves as wealthy or privileged. You got what you had because you worked or studied hard. The state was there to help people, but we were always raised to believe that we weren’t just entitled to things.

As my nascent political identity developed, I was torn between the PD s and Fine Gael. John Bruton and Frances Fitzgerald of Fine Gael, and Des O’Malley and Mary Harney of the Progressive Democrats, were doing interesting things and seemed to have gone into politics for the right reasons. I remember being impressed when Harney described Ireland as more like Boston than Berlin – that someone in politics thought Ireland could resemble either of these two modern, liberal, affluent and outward-looking cities was encouraging.

After some consideration, at sixteen I joined Fine Gael. They seemed as passionate as me about a vision of Ireland at the heart of Europe politically, not just geographically on its fringes. As Ireland’s economy continued improving, I also liked the idea of a responsible government that didn’t spend money we didn’t have. Grandad and Nana ran the farm and a small haulage business. Dad was a self-employed GP and Mum managed the clinic. It seemed obvious that you should only spend money you’d earned, and only borrow money if you knew you could pay it back. Fine Gael seemed the perfect blend of progressiveness and prudence. The party looked to the future, not the past, and could see how Ireland could be great – and how, in many ways, it already was.

I realise all this makes me sound like a very pompous teenager, and perhaps in some ways I was. My schoolfriends knew I was interested in politics, but I tried not to bore them. While I might have been a bit unusual, I wasn’t a total weirdo. I followed the Fine Gael Ard Fheis, but as well as political conferences I also went to concerts and fanboyed over my favourite bands. My friends and I necked cans of warm cider beside the canal, alongside the dual carriageway, or at one of the various pubs serving underage drinkers. I got up to the same hijinks as any other kid; I just did so while knowing my PríomhBhreitheamh from my Ceann Comhairle.

I knew I was gay. Even before I knew what ‘gay’ was I knew I was different – kicking a football left me cold; on the Aussie soap, Neighbours, that all us kids watched in the ’80s, I preferred Scott to Charlene – but I’m not sure what I made of that. As a teenager, I kissed a few girls but wasn’t interested in dating. I think I thought it was a phase, and I’d end up married like everyone else.

Mum and Dad hoped I’d go into medicine, like them. Sophie had already taken that path and Sonia was planning to be a midwife. I imagine – it was never explicitly said – my parents hoped at least one of us would inherit the family practice. I wasn’t necessarily opposed to the idea, but my interest in politics was increasing. I imagine they assumed it was a hobby, and that I’d grow out of it.

My fascination with politics gave me a sense of identity, a feeling of community, and a goal. I’d started to imagine having the courage to make decisions affecting the whole country. About being on Questions and Answers rather than just watching it.

I had modest success in school politics and, after a campaign I ran as professionally as possible, was elected to the student council, although I never made it to prefect. Emer Currie, future Fine Gael Teachta Dála, was on it the year before me. It was disappointing to realise the teachers and school administration didn’t take the council very seriously.

In Transition Year in 1995, I did a short internship at Dáil Éireann with Frances Fitzgerald, TD . I was so excited as I took the train into Dublin for my very first day in an office. Not just any office – the Dáil! Stepping onto the platform and making my way through the city, I was full of anticipation. Finally, I went through those big gates and found myself surrounded by the people who were running the country. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs like the air there was special.

Frances was kind, professional and helpful as she put me to work fetching coffees, photocopying, and moving piles of paper. She’d clearly dealt with interns loads of times.

‘So, you’re interested in politics?’ she said.

I agreed that I was and asked what it was like working with Northern Irish unionists. I’d never been north of the border and had only seen them on TV. They seemed exotic.

‘Oh, you know,’ she replied. ‘The most important thing is to try to understand other people’s viewpoint. Everyone has their reasons for how they think.’

Frances was busy, but she explained the Fine Gael basics, like why

the country shouldn’t spend money it didn’t have and how it should embrace women’s equality. I felt like I was consulting an oracle. When my week at the Dáil was over, she shook my hand warmly. ‘I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again,’ she said.

This internship with Frances was only for a short time thirty years ago, but Frances was the first of various important mentors in my early life. While I hope she knows I’m grateful, I’m sure I’ve never thanked her enough.

I’d later do a brief stint with Susan Denham, a judge on the Supreme Court, in the Judges’ Library. Once again, I made photocopies, collected coffees, emptied wastepaper baskets, and asked far too many questions.

Susan’s husband, Dr Brian Denham, was a paediatrician. Michael Fitzgerald, Frances’s husband, was a psychiatrist Dad knew. Both times, I got the position through family connections. Obviously, I was very lucky to do internships like this as a sixteen-year-old kid. At the time I took it for granted – it was just friends of my parents helping out. But I know that most young people don’t have the opportunities I did. Looking back, I can appreciate that, and I’m very thankful. I worked various paid part-time jobs in my young years too. The first was at Captain Americas on Grafton Street. I was a rubbish waiter, dropping plates and bumping into customers, so I only got a few shifts. The job that lasted longest was as a sales assistant in Fred Hanna’s bookshop on Nassau Street, for £3.50 an hour. It was a handy number, just across from Trinity – this was shortly after the Leaving Cert, and I was expecting to study there – and I could borrow Mum’s car and park nearby for free on Saturdays.

The best part of Hanna’s was the people I met. Some of the staff were students, but for others it was their main job. Realising the fulltime staff had to get by on so little was a wake-up call. For me, my wages were just pocket money. I’d tuck into the sandwich I’d bought at the local deli while they opened a packed lunch. It was great to go for drinks after work with people so much older than me, to house parties in town and to see DJ s in trendy venues like POD and RedBox. One person I got to know well then was Patrick

Geoghegan, an intelligent, witty PhD student whose conversations were a treat. He has remained a good friend.

I started at Trinity in autumn 1997. After trying out law for a few weeks – a minor act of rebellion – I transferred to medicine. What else? It was what my parents had always wanted, what everyone had always assumed I’d do. It was a noble profession and a good career, and while it wasn’t my passion, I was happy enough. Looking back, I think that history or economics would have suited me better. But I knew being a doctor – a GP – would help when I eventually stood for election. GP s are firmly rooted in their local communities, everyone knows them, and medicine is a respected position. If I got in, I’d be able to keep working as a doctor, helping people when they needed it most, while also pursuing a career in politics, and helping people in a different way.

Biochemistry lecturer Luke O’Neill was the trendiest member of staff. He wore a cool leather jacket and perched jauntily on the edge of his desk while delivering classes. Many of the female students had crushes on him. I had the impression he knew that, and quite enjoyed it, though he was always totally professional.

I liked the rigour and discipline of studying medicine and the scientific method. You start by gathering your evidence: listening, observing, and doing the necessary checks to determine the root of a problem. You should be able to devise a concise list of potential issues, known as ‘the differential diagnosis’. You determine the likeliest, and proceed accordingly, returning to your list if the first line of treatment doesn’t work. Using an evidenced-based approach works best in politics too. When you start making decisions with emotion rather than logic, you’re heading for trouble.

But the best thing about going to college? Meeting people just like me. My family still assumed my love of politics would eventually fade. At school, nobody had teased me about my passions, but nobody really understood them either. I’d grown used to seeing eyes glaze over when I shared my interests. Now I was meeting other young adults whose eyes sparkled when someone mentioned referendums,

treaties and protocols. Who liked the idea of poring over policy documents. Who didn’t find my pursuits odd.

I joined loads of societies, and particularly loved The Hist, one of the oldest university debating societies in the world (I never won anything), and Young Fine Gael. Freshers’ week was devoted to encouraging incoming students to join YFG . Through the academic year, I spent more time pursuing my extracurricular activities than at lectures and in labs. I was elected to the college committee funding the societies – the first time I helped manage a budget of over a million euros. I remember noticing Q Soc, Trinity’s club for gay, lesbian, and bi students, and being surprised it even existed.

Lucinda Creighton was one of my new friends. She was dynamic and charismatic. Her outgoing personality and blonde good looks won her plenty of admirers, and so did her incisive, inquiring mind. It was exciting to find a political soulmate. Someone who believed in the social market economy and individual rights and responsibilities and thrashing out Fine Gael values. Having strong communities, encouraging business and managing the economy prudently was, we agreed, the basis for a stable, prosperous society. Those bright eyes would flash when you said things like ‘constitutional amendment’.

We graduated from coffees to pints and late nights, and from there to shared adventures. Other good friends were Mark Finan, Kate Cullen and Ciarán Cullen. We frequented student bars: The Pav at the bottom of College Park, lovely in summer when you could drink outside, and The Buttery, just off Front Square, which was a bit artier and grungier.

In April 1998, when I was still in my first year, the Good Friday Agreement was signed, heralding a new era for Northern Ireland and, to a lesser but still considerable extent, Ireland too. We were all happy that the violence we’d seen on TV throughout our childhoods was over, but very few realised what a big deal the agreement was for the Republic of Ireland, and how it would contribute to economic growth. Professor Mary McAleese had become president the year before – the first person from the North to hold the office. The economy had

picked up a lot since the 1980s, and my generation would only have to emigrate if we wanted to.

Around this time, I joined another group: the youth branch of the European People’s Party ( YEPP ). The EPP, an alliance of centreright pro-Europe parties, is Europe’s largest political party. Fine Gael was a founding member, and Fine Gael MEP s sit as part of the EPP group in the EU . It was great to travel around Europe as I attended summer schools, congresses and conferences. The EU was about to enlarge to the east and the south, and I wondered if I should run as an MEP after college. I discussed the idea with some friends in Young Fine Gael. It made sense to start local and run for the council first.

This was the time of the Washington Consensus, and most countries were embracing globalisation, free trade and the market economy. Countries like Hungary were becoming ever more liberal and democratic. Even Russia seemed to be moving towards democracy and western values. Of course, it wasn’t all rosy: war was raging in the Balkans, and once again America intervened when Europe failed to act. But most of us believed the world was on the right path.

As I became increasingly immersed in politics, Frances Fitzgerald re-entered my life. Trinity was in her constituency and I regularly met her at Young Fine Gael and Fine Gael events. When we first ran into each other she’d laughed and said she wasn’t surprised to see me. She asked me to do research for her, and sometimes help with policy papers on defence and peacekeeping, social welfare and budget submissions, which were her areas of responsibility at the time.

My mother complained it was time away from my studies. ‘Are you sure you’re not letting yourself be taken advantage of by Fine Gael?’

I brushed this off. It was an opportunity. Frances – then a Fine Gael front bench TD – was an important person in the party. By helping her, I was showing the party what I was made of, while also having lots of fun because – as it turned out – I love writing policy papers.

A lesson that everyone in politics figures out eventually is that it can become quite difficult to tell who your true friends are. Political relationships are often warm and cordial but can also be transactional. People want something from you, or you want something from

them, or both. As a student, I socialised almost exclusively with other young people engaged in politics. Most were almost as obsessed as me. I threw myself utterly into that world to the exclusion of all else.

Outside that bubble, Dublin was buzzing with music, pubs, culture, nightclubs and entertainment. Most of my peers were having fun. They were getting dressed up and going out. They were trying on different relationships for size, hooking up, having sex or falling in love. For same-sex-attracted young people, while issues with homophobia still lingered, there were many opportunities to have an enjoyable time with like-minded people. Dublin’s most famous gay bars, The George and The Front Lounge, were a few hundred metres from Trinity College. They might as well have been on the moon. I never went. It never even occurred to me to go.

Like many gay men of my generation, I wasn’t quite ready to confront my sexuality, and instead I threw myself into my studies and my other passions, politics and music. A lot of closeted gay men are tremendously successful in various fields – the professions, business, academia, art and politics. One of the reasons is the fact that we tend to throw ourselves into our work, pouring our restless energy into something so that we don’t have to deal with a sexuality we’re not comfortable with. As I became more deeply involved in politics, I always had a ready excuse for why I didn’t have a girlfriend: ‘I’m too busy!’ or ‘I don’t have the time’ or ‘I’m getting established in politics – there’ll be time for that later’.

I’ve been asked if I was lonely then, but I wasn’t. I had politics, which I had identified as the great love of my life.

Eye on the prize

In 1999, there were local council elections. Joanne Harmon, who had run for Fine Gael in the 1997 election – but hadn’t been elected – suggested I run. She’d become the youth officer at Fine Gael headquarters, and had taken me under her wing and given me a lot of encouragement. ‘We’ve all seen how much you do for the party,’ she said. ‘You’d be great!’

I immediately put my name forward, enthralled with the idea of starting my political career. It was a matter of both ego and altruism – as is usually the case for politicians, whether or not they choose to acknowledge it. I liked the idea of being at the top, but also the idea that I could change my country for the better along the way. At twenty, I was so enthusiastic, so confident, so besotted by the political process, I was sure the electorate would see how much I cared.

Fine Gael put me forward as a candidate for Mulhuddart Local Electoral Area, close to Blanchardstown. I received a brief phone call and pep talk from party leader John Bruton. I was surprised later that day to learn he had also rung my parents to confirm they were okay with me running for office, given I was still in college. I didn’t mind. I was running my first political campaign!

Fine Gael was weak on the ground – Fianna Fáil, under Bertie Ahern, was riding high on the fumes of the Celtic Tiger. I did almost everything on my own, with help from a few good friends. I festooned lamp posts with posters I’d had made. I distributed leaflets and went door to door, explained I was running for election and asked householders for their vote, focusing on the rapid development of the area and the absence of infrastructure and amenities.

The first door I knocked on was in a new housing estate, Castlefield in Clonsilla. This time I was asking for a vote for myself, rather than someone else. A much more daunting prospect than any time I had canvassed previously. The young man who opened the door was pleasant and non- committal as I blurted out my pitch. Of the hundred or so doors I knocked on that night, only one or two opened to reveal hostility rather than a pleasant, or at least neutral, reception. But nobody knew my name or who I was. Clearly, I was going to have to do a lot of work – posters, leaflets, public meetings – until people recognised the new face.

The key issues for this local election were the obvious ones: better public transport, improved street lighting, more playgrounds. One of my lines was ‘There are more golf courses than playgrounds in Dublin 15’. I downplayed my age, describing myself as ‘in my twenties’ rather than ‘twenty’ and a ‘student doctor’. Almost everyone I met on the campaign trail was friendly, polite and smiling. I took that as a good sign. One or two blinked when they saw me, saying things like ‘You look like you should be in school!’ or ‘Does your mother know you’re out?’

What’s that saying about pride coming before a fall?

When the votes were counted, I’d come sixth, just behind Sinn Féin candidate Paul Donnelly, also unelected. The worst part was spending the next few days removing all my posters – a grim walk of shame with ladder in tow – when I just wanted to stay at home and lick my wounds.

My youthful arrogance is the main character in this cautionary tale. With no real political experience, and even less life experience, I hadn’t been nearly as strong a candidate as I’d imagined. Fine Gael had struggled to find a candidate to contest a seat that would be hard to win, and I’d been the only one to step up. I’d known the numbers and that objectively it didn’t look as if I was likely to get elected, but I had enormous self-belief and had hoped to revive the dormant local party. Still, at least I’d learned how to run a campaign. I’d done the tough stuff like knocking on doors and making my pitch to uninterested voters. I’d learned how important it is to run for election in your

home area. Most importantly, I’d shown Fine Gael I was serious and had potential. I’ve never lost an election since.

At that time, a programme called Young Leaders was giving Irish students the opportunity to get a J-1 visa and intern at the US Congress. It was initially designed for people from Northern Ireland, to grow relationships among future leaders from unionist and nationalist backgrounds. Now it had been expanded to students from the south. I made my way to Connolly station and bought a ticket to Belfast. I had never been to Northern Ireland before; Belfast is just two hours or so north of Dublin, but it seemed a million miles away. I must have got my passion across during the interview at Queen’s University, because a few weeks later, I was accepted onto the programme.

Everything about Washington DC was thrilling: the big, white, neoclassical buildings where so many big decisions were made; the city itself, so different to Dublin; the opportunity to travel; the atmosphere of optimism. I lodged with a local Irish American, Kathy Barger, and managed to live on my small stipend. Clinton was president – I saw him in the distance once – and I shared an elevator with Ted Kennedy and a Metro carriage with Newt Gingrich. Mostly, I got to see the inner workings of government and to appreciate how much work it takes to run a country.

Of course, I already knew about the large Irish American population, but I’d never really understood before how deeply so many Irish Americans love Ireland, and how lucky we are that these warm feelings have often influenced American relationships with us. They want to help Ireland and expect nothing back. We often take their goodwill for granted – but we shouldn’t.

I also learned a lot more about Northern Ireland. The Northern interns had grown up in a tense environment. One, Debbie Gibson, was the daughter of Mervyn Gibson, a senior figure in the Orange Order. Whatever their background, it took courage for them to come to Washington and work side by side with people from the other side of the divide. It took America to get me contemplating what daily life must be like in Northern Ireland.

In 2001, I was elected to the board of YEPP as a vice president.

Our focus was on bringing people closer, and on deepening and widening the organisation. This was one of the happiest times in my life. I got to see much more of Europe than I could have afforded on my own – from Paris to Sarajevo, and even Belarus. I met young people with similar interests and outlooks and learned about how other parties and countries thought and operated.

Some of my new friends would go on to do wonderful things – Roberta Metsola MEP, for example, is president of the European Parliament at the time of writing. Others became prime ministers in their countries – for example, Jyrki Katainen in Finland and Fredrik Reinfeldt in Sweden. We formed friendships over drinks and deep conversations, and many of us remain friends today.*

In 2002, I was elected one of three rapporteurs to the Youth Convention on the Future of Europe. We presented our recommendations on a constitutional treaty for Europe to the ‘senior’ convention chaired by former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. I got to speak in the hemicycle – the main chamber – of the European Parliament. For a young man of twenty-three, this was wildly exciting. I was still high on the thrill of it all later that day when I approached John Bruton, then one of the vice presidents of the convention. I’d got to know John – deposed from the Fine Gael leadership in favour of Michael Noonan the year before – quite well over the previous few years. He was warm and open-minded, and very encouraging of young people in politics. He’d been elected to the Dáil at just twentytwo, so he knew the score. I liked him a lot.

‘Well done, Leo,’ John said. ‘Great speech.’

‘Thanks!’ I replied, trying to look cool.

* Having such deep relationships with European politicians turned out to be invaluable when dealing with the fall-out from Brexit. I did not have to introduce myself to senior people in Brussels, and many friends across Europe were supportive sounding boards. On the other hand, because UK politicians weren’t in the EPP and I never became a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, my contacts in UK politics were far fewer. I depended on colleagues with better UK connections for the kind of insights that come with meeting counterparts regularly and getting to know them as people.

‘The senior convention must be seen to listen to the youth, you know,’ he continued. ‘It has to look like we’re making the effort.’

That took the wind from my sails. So my speech wasn’t quite as big a deal as I’d thought? But John was speaking to me openly as a sign of respect. He wasn’t being patronising.

Afterwards, back at the Renaissance Hotel with the other delegates, we celebrated the event with such gusto that in the morning half of us couldn’t remember crawling to bed. Whenever I’m in Brussels, I make a point of staying there, partly because it rekindles the joy I felt then at participating in something so much bigger than myself, and being taken seriously by people much further along their political journey.

In Young Fine Gael we spent lots of time discussing domestic social policy issues, of which abortion was the most contentious. Ten years on, the tragic X Case was still causing ripples. In early 1992, the parents of a pregnant, suicidal fourteen-year-old rape victim, Miss X, planned to take her abroad for an abortion and sought Garda advice on obtaining DNA from the foetus that might help in prosecuting her rapist. Their query came to the attention of the attorney general, Harry Whelehan, who – mindful of the 1983 ‘right to life’ Eighth Amendment to the constitution – sought and was granted an injunction preventing Miss X from travelling.* Weeks later, the Supreme Court overturned the injunction, and their judgement established in law a woman’s right to an abortion if there was a ‘real and substantial risk’ to her life, including the risk of suicide. The X Case put abortion back on the table, resulting in three referendums later that year.† Ten years on, there had been no legislation to deal with the fall-out from the judgement that essentially legalised abortion in Ireland,

* Miss X and her parents were already in England by the time the injunction was granted. They cancelled plans for the termination and returned to Ireland. When the Supreme Court overturned the injunction, they travelled back to the UK . Miss X miscarried before she could have the procedure.

† One – preventing suicide being used as grounds for obtaining an abortion – was defeated. The other two – establishing a right to travel and a right for people to access information on services provided lawfully overseas – were passed.

albeit on narrow grounds. Doctors were operating in a legal limbo, because the politicians had avoided the challenge of formulating laws to respond to the Supreme Court ruling.

In 2002 , Bertie Ahern’s government, a coalition of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, proposed the Twenty-Fifth Amendment as one of a series of measures to deal with crisis pregnancies. The amendment would have removed the threat of suicide as grounds for abortion in Ireland. Fine Gael, under socially liberal leader Michael Noonan, the Labour Party, the Green Party and Sinn Féin opposed it, and ultimately so did the public, by a narrow majority. Lucinda (at the time involved in the Trinity Abortion Rights Task Force) and I were both involved in the campaign against the proposed amendment, which was far too extreme, a throwback to Ireland’s past. At our conference in Galway, we succeeded in getting YFG to adopt a policy of legalising abortion in certain circumstances.

While I always felt I should follow the party line on abortion, I’ve never seen it as a black-and-white issue. My medical training had demonstrated that there isn’t a single cut- off point in a pregnancy before which you can truly say ‘this isn’t a human life’.

I enjoyed my hospital-based training at St James’s and Tallaght University Hospital much more than I enjoyed lectures in college. I preferred being on the wards and in the clinics, seeing medicine being practised and surgeries being done, rather than spending hours in a lecture theatre or laboratory. On graduating in 2003, aged twentyfour, I started an intern year divided between Wexford General Hospital and St James’s in Dublin, after which I entered the GP training scheme as planned. Apart from my stint in Washington, that summer in Wexford was the first time I’d lived away from home.

GP s need to know a bit about everything. I was really at the coalface of medicine, seeing people at their best and their worst, the beginning of their lives and the end. My favourite hospital department was emergency because the work was never routine. You’d go from sore throats to gunshot wounds. Emergency also offered shift

work, so although I worked hard, I knew when I’d be off. If I did a week of nights – when the most sleep you’d get was a stolen hour or two in an uncomfortable dorm – I’d have a week off. I also liked medicine for the elderly. Geriatricians are among the best at treating the patient as a whole person – considering their social circumstances, family situation and housing needs.

You never forget your first death. One night a man was brought into emergency with severe stab wounds. His brother was with him, looking anxious and edgy. It became clear the stabbing had occurred because of their involvement in crime. I stabilised the patient. Confident he’d survive, I told his brother he could go home. He scarpered, apparently relieved not just because I’d said his brother would be okay, but also to evade arrest. Not long after, my patient’s condition deteriorated suddenly, and he died. My misplaced confidence meant he’d died alone.

Even worse were the deaths of young patients at Crumlin Children’s Hospital. I never had to break the news myself, but was often there alongside a senior colleague telling a mum and dad their beautiful son or daughter hadn’t made it.

Something I always found tough was going from a particularly harrowing case to the next patient, who might have a simple UTI or another relatively minor condition, and having to treat their needs with the same attention and gravity. Any good doctor becomes an expert in multitasking. The great ones learn how to use their emotions and feelings when it’s useful, and turn them off when it’s not. The same is true of politicians.

As an eighteen-year-old I had felt that becoming a GP would give me a good profile in the community. But inevitably, as my training progressed, I was learning a lot about people and about myself – the kind of insights that come from dealing with people at their most vulnerable. The GP training scheme taught me to understand what people are really saying, because often they have hidden agendas that they don’t fully understand themselves. Patients can feel very unwell with conditions rooted in stress, anxiety and grief. They can be perturbed or angry when someone suggests their disease may have an

emotional origin. Gradually, I became better at figuring out what was really going on.

One day, an older woman presented with severe pain in her upper abdomen. She described having a ‘hole’ inside her body. She was white-faced and tense as I examined her carefully, asking questions, eliminating any obvious cause for her discomfort. It was baffling. Then she said, ‘It started not long after my husband passed. I’ve been in pain ever since.’

For years, patients with somatoform disorders felt dismissed when people said things like ‘It’s all in your mind’. Often, patients need reassurance and care as much as a diagnosis and medication. In politics, too, I’ve found that what people say they’re angry or upset about isn’t always the real issue. As in medicine, it’s important to explore what’s really going on. It’s essential for people to understand exactly what’s happening to them, especially in a difficult situation. Working at Holles Street Maternity Hospital as a senior house officer, I frequently had to explain to young women why they’d had a miscarriage. Many of them worried they’d done something wrong. Invariably, they hadn’t. Taking the time to listen to their concerns and explain made it easier for them to process their grief.

Something else that medicine shares with politics is how important it is for people to feel you’re on their side. Most people go to their GP, or contact their TD , when they need help. You need to build a rapport, because people need to feel heard and know you have their interests at heart. As someone who’d grown up in a family, and at a time, where feelings were kept private, learning how to deal with them – my own, and my patients’ – was a steep learning curve.

Banks were offering 100 per cent mortgages to anyone with a wellpaid job, so even as a very young doctor I could finance the purchase of a small apartment. I decided to buy in my home area because I felt it would be easier to get elected if people knew I understood what they experienced every day: traffic, litter, local crime. Everything’s clear in retrospect, but that time looks mad now. As a twentyfour-year-old junior doctor, I bought a two-bedroom apartment in

Carpenterstown, Castleknock, for about €350,000 – many multiples of my income. Several friends were doing the same I never seriously considered not living in the constituency. I needed to live in the area I wanted to represent. I knew many people there, mostly involved with Fine Gael at a local level: councillors, volunteers, and regular attendees of party meetings. It also just felt like home.

In June 2003, living in my new flat and working full-time at St James’s in central Dublin, my political career took a decisive step forward. Back in July 2001, the Oireachtas had abolished the dual mandate that allowed members of the Dáil and the Seanad to also sit on local councils. The dual mandate had long been considered controversial. Sheila Terry – a Fine Gael senator serving on my local council – relinquished her seat in response to the change in the law. Sheila had originally been a Progressive Democrat and then an independent. She had joined Fine Gael in 2000 and had been elected to the Seanad while doing an excellent job on the council. She could run a meeting like nobody else and had fantastic grassroots skills.

I knew Sheila well. I’d worked on her campaign when she ran for the Dáil in 2002, which she lost narrowly to Labour’s Joan Burton. We’d often talked about my plan to become a councillor and then a TD , and she was very supportive. She knew how ambitious I was and taught me everything she could. Now, with Sheila gone, there was a vacancy for a Fine Gael councillor. As I was very active locally – and had shown I could run a campaign – I was co-opted. Sheila’s strong recommendation and kind words on my behalf helped a lot, though she initially proposed someone else, who turned it down.

This was a huge deal for me. You don’t have to start out on a council to become a TD , but it helps, and I seized this big opportunity with both hands. Joan Maher, a Fine Gael councillor from Howth, took me under her wing and showed me the ropes. As council meetings frequently clashed with work – I was working full-time at St James’s – I often used annual leave to attend them. I turned my small second bedroom into a home office and regularly stayed up till three or four in the morning answering emails. People commented

on how my responses landed in their inboxes at all hours. I hoped this showed my dedication.

By my second year, I was getting into my stride, working alongside councillors including Alan Farrell, Clare Daly, Ruth Coppinger and Darragh O’Brien. I liked Clare, who was a committed socialist. We couldn’t have been more different politically, but she was hard-working and a passionate local politician. And like me, she spoke her mind.

I could see how our decisions translated into positive change for the area. I watched local amenities go from vague ideas to carefully drawn plans to reality. I was involved in a campaign for a hospice in Blanchardstown, and we managed to reserve land for it. I was also involved with the development of a greenway along the Royal Canal, which would eventually transform the canal into a major public space – a green ribbon through some of the most built-up inner-city areas and into the suburbs. The policies TD s make can take years to have an impact on society, but the much more practical work of councils can show results very quickly. I still love seeing families enjoying parks, playgrounds, gardens and sporting facilities that I helped to deliver.

In 2004, I had to defend my seat in the local elections. I had been lucky to be co-opted, but was my hard work impressing the public? Emulating Sheila Terry’s approach, I ran a killer campaign – huge numbers of leaflets in doors, billboards, canvassing at train stations and road junctions.

I was elected with the largest number of votes for any councillor in the country. I knew Fine Gael must be noticing. I’d topped the poll! While my home office was orderly, the rest of the apartment was a mess. I had no time to be house-proud. Combining long shifts as a doctor with council work meant I rarely sat down for meals. Socialising was pints after canvasses, receptions, coffees with other councillors, or attending Fine Gael events. I was never really not working. I ate takeaways, frozen pizzas and deli sandwiches, and had neither the time nor the inclination to exercise. I gained weight. I chose not to think about it. There would be time to worry about that later on.

While I went on occasional holidays – Washington and Chicago with Lucinda, a foray to Barcelona, a few trips to Tuscany – I used most of my holidays and study leave to catch up on council business. My eye was on the prize: becoming a TD . But I often felt I was doing a bad job of everything. I annoyed medical colleagues when I didn’t pull my weight or was late. I was giving council work more time than medicine but still missing council meetings when I couldn’t get the time off. It felt awful.

As the final part of my GP training, I had to do two years in practice. I worked in Newbridge, Stillorgan and Inchicore, mostly doing office hours, enjoying a structured day off a week for study and spending more time on council business. After that, I’d be fully qualified to work in the Varadkar family practice, which seemed to be the unspoken assumption. On paper, it looked like a great opportunity – it was an established practice with loads of patients and potential voters. Why go off looking for a job in another surgery when I could step straight into the one my parents had spent years building up?

I’d always assumed I’d serve at least a full term as a councillor before standing for election to the Dáil. The next general election had to happen by June 2007, and local Fine Gael members started approaching me, saying that I should put my name forward. It was all happening faster than I’d anticipated. In 2005, I started talks with local Fine Gael members and headquarters staff about standing as a candidate. The complication was that, as the senior Fine Gael person in the constituency, Sheila Terry and her supporters would naturally assume she would be the party’s Dáil candidate. She was unaware of the discussions I was having.

Sheila had done so much to encourage and advise me, so when local Fine Gael members said they’d support me instead of her for the nomination – and the party HQ agreed I was the best candidate – I should have arranged to meet her immediately. ‘I’ll always be grateful for everything you’ve done for me,’ I should have said. ‘You’ve always been more than kind. You’ve taught me a lot.’

I should have explained that Fine Gael’s choice wasn’t personal,

nor a judgement on her work in the constituency. She’d worked tirelessly. I’d been chosen partly because I’d come up through the party, and she’d entered via a sideways route, and because HQ felt I had a better chance.

All this would have been hard for Sheila to hear, but I could have let her vent some of her hurt at me privately before making any public statement.

But I didn’t call her.

In advance of the Fine Gael selection convention in February 2006, Sheila learned that I was going to put my name forward. She was furious. Perhaps even then I could have rung her, arranged to meet, and straightened things out as best I could.

I didn’t.

Sheila lashed out. She said harsh things about me to the local press. She felt used by Fine Gael and accused me of being ungrateful. There was probably some truth to both accusations, but that’s politics. I was the obvious candidate. In politics, everyone is replaceable and nobody’s entitled to anything. It doesn’t necessarily matter how hard you fought or how much you believed. But we’re all human, and we all have feelings. I deeply regret how I mishandled my relationship with Sheila. All I can say in mitigation is that I was young and immature. But while I still had tunnel vision about getting ahead in politics, I was learning to be more up front with colleagues about my ambitions.

4. Deputy Varadkar

It’s very hard to get elected in a three-seat constituency, and that’s what I was trying to do. You need a quarter of the vote plus one, which is a lot. The other local candidates were high-profile, successful career politicians: Brian Lenihan of Fianna Fáil, Joan Burton of Labour, and Joe Higgins, leader of the Socialist Party. I knew them all. Whoever went up against them would have their work cut out.

I liked Brian and respected Joan and Joe, though Joan’s habit of making a dramatic late entrance to meetings, in her trademark bright red coat, was intensely irritating. In March 2007, I took unpaid leave to focus on the campaign. The Trinity GP training scheme had always been supportive and allowed me to do this.

People’s salaries were higher than ever and many were living it up – shopping weekends in New York, investment properties in Eastern Europe, all the trappings of a nouveau riche lifestyle. The government was awash with revenue, mainly from stamp duty on houses sold at inflated rates. There had been a dramatic increase in household debt, but people were comfortable with it. Under Fianna Fáil, people felt wealthier than ever, and many voters were delighted with how they were handling things. As the election approached, therefore, the opposition was fighting an uphill battle. Fortunately, I was the only local Fine Gael candidate in the constituency, so I expected to get the votes of the party loyalists, and hopefully support from voters who could see the government was deeply unrealistic about the Celtic Tiger’s trajectory.

The election campaign took place in the early summer. I hired a company to do telephone canvassing: standard practice in America,