Leo Varadkar: Ireland's youngest Taoiseach moves on

His political aspirations were sparked while studying medicine at Trinity College. He joined Fine Gael and in 1999, he ran unsuccessfully in the local elections - telling RTÉ News of his ambition to become Minister for Health.

Although Mr Varadkar has been credited with a finely-tuned political antenna, he backed the losing side in the 2010 heave against Enda Kenny. Despite this, he was appointed a minister in the 2011 Fine Gael–Labour government with responsibility for Transport, Tourism and Sport. That revelation made him the first openly gay Cabinet minister and was a carefully managed announcement in advance of the Marriage Equality referendum.

He outflanked Mr Coveney in the overall contest but the Cork TD pulled off a surprise by garnering a bigger share of the membership vote. The path was now set for Mr Varadkar's ascent to the highest political office at the age of 38. Some months later, the government nearly collapsed in a bitter row over Minister Frances Fitzgerald's handling of Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe. Fianna Fáil demanded her resignation and so the government survived.

In the post-mortem afterwards, several errors were identified including a misplaced belief in a Brexit bounce along with mistakes on pensions. Leo Varadkar resolved to go into opposition insisting the party needed to regroup. Many more public addresses followed as even tougher measures were introduced including an address with a huge audience on St Patrick’s Day.

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