Leo Varadkar

Leo Eric Varadkar ( və-RAD-kər; born 18 January 1979) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach from 2017 to 2020 and from 2022 to 2024, as Tánaiste from 2020 to 2022, and as leader of Fine Gael from 2017 to 2024. A TD for the Dublin West constituency from 2007 to 2024, he held a range of other ministerial positions from 2011 to 2024. Described as centre-right economically, he advocated free markets, lower taxes, and welfare reform. On social issues, he supported successful constitutional referendums to legalise same-sex marriage and to liberalise Ireland's abortion laws.

Born in Dublin, Varadkar is the third child and first son in his multiracial family. His father Ashok is a doctor who was born and raised in Mumbai, India. His mother Miriam grew up on a farm in Dungarvan, County Waterford.

Varadkar studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin and worked as a non-consultant hospital doctor and general practitioner. A member of Fine Gael since his teenage years, he ran unsuccessfully in the 1999 local elections but was co-opted onto Fingal County Council in 2003.

He was elected to the council in the 2004 local elections, attaining the highest number of first-preference votes of any candidate in the country. First elected to Dáil Éireann in the 2007 general election, he was appointed to the cabinet of Taoiseach Enda Kenny following the 2011 general election, which saw Fine Gael return to government after 14 years in opposition. He served as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport from 2011 to 2014, Minister for Health from 2014 to 2016, and Minister for Social Protection from 2016 to 2017. During the campaign for the 2015 same-sex marriage referendum, he came out as gay, the first serving Irish minister to do so.

Following Kenny's resignation, Varadkar defeated Simon Coveney in the 2017 Fine Gael leadership election and was appointed Taoiseach on 14 June 2017. Aged 38, he was at that time the youngest Taoiseach in the history of the state. He became the first Taoiseach from an ethnic minority group, as well as Ireland's first, and the world's fifth, openly gay head of government. He led Fine Gael into the 2020 general election, in which the party won 35 seats, a loss of 15 seats since the 2016 general election. After lengthy negotiations, Fine Gael formed a three-party coalition government with Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, with the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael party leaders rotating the offices of Taoiseach and Tánaiste.