Leo Varadkar – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

No breakthrough for May at Salzburg. More moves on the border needed and concessions on the single market

Brian Walker on September 20, 2018, 11:52 am

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God knows where we are now. Groping towards a solution probably. We’re unlikely to get much more clarity from Salzburg by the end of the day. The suggestion of a second referendum by the Maltese and Czech leaders made an interesting diversion but little more. The Irish Times headlined “stark divisions” between May and Varadkar in advance of their breakfast meeting today but added: Sources close to the prime minister accepted, however, that London would be bringing forward proposals on …

Focusing on the bigger picture is how to prevent a Brexit disaster

Brian Walker on July 27, 2018, 11:03 am

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The Sun and the Guardian, raucous tabloid and campaigning broadsheet on either side of the Brexit trauma are united: Barnier has killed off the Chequers plan. The FT however is more circumspect. We have doubts it can be done without putting at risk the integrity of the customs union, our common commercial policy, regulatory policy and fiscal revenue,” said Mr Barnier. Mr Barnier and Mr Raab also said they had agreed to work on a model for financial services co-operation …

“almost in the space of trying to undermine confidence in the new Garda Commissioner…”

Mick Fealty on June 28, 2018, 10:51 am

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To Brian’s pointed question about Leo, Mary Lou and Drew, I’d add another. What does Mary Lou’s Dail offensive tell us about SF’s attitude to the new and fairly (as far as we can tell) appointed Garda Commissioner and the mechanism of the southern state? Like their attack on the Special Criminal in the week the Hutch-Kinihan feud began (ie, in the first week of the last southern General Election) it perhaps suggests the SF leader is bound to an …

Breaking… The UK will meet the June deadline with a breakthrough plan for Brexit and the border, to a cautious welcome from Varadkar

Brian Walker on May 17, 2018, 5:34 pm

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Has the fog started to clear? Can any sense be made of the claim and denial about extending the transition beyond 2020 to buy time to solve the customs relationship and the border? The Guardian, RTE and the BBC all thinks so, reporting top level briefings from both governments at the EU summit in Sofia. Without overdoing it sounds like a modest breakthrough on the hitherto incompatible versions of the stopgap . The longer term relationship involving a longer transition …

If you were the EU’s chief negotiator, what would you say to Arlene Foster to make her happier?

Brian Walker on May 1, 2018, 1:11 pm

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Not exactly an unbiased report in the Daily Telegraph Michel Barnier has denied trying to split up the United Kingdom after strongly backing plans that would create a new border between Britain and Northern Ireland after Brexit. In an inflammatory address in Dundalk, Ireland on Monday, Mr Barnier denied there was a secret EU plan to pressure Britain into reversing Brexit by insisting on a backstop clause that would keep Northern Ireland in the EU’s Single Market and Customs Union. Arlene …

Political ferment is reflected in the GFA junketings, but no sign of a breakthrough

Brian Walker on April 11, 2018, 12:23 pm

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Will the DUP and Sinn Fein pay any attention to the eloquent pleas of the elder statesmen to return to the Executive? On the surface the answer appears to be no, unless something is going on behind the scenes we don’t know about. Local politics suffers from elder statesperson fatigue. This generation has learned how to take in their stride the high sounding generalities from popes, presidents and prime ministers past and present. The shock of the new wore off …

Brinkmanship on the Border

Brian Walker on March 19, 2018, 12:16 pm

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Another day, another doubt. After a weekend of sherpa preparations for the EU summit on Thursday and Friday, both sides are still unsure they can reach an agreed position by tomorrow night on transition terms and duration for the UK’s departure from the EU. From the Irish Times preview of the David/Barnier meeting, it’s clear that the Irish government neither want nor need to take sole responsibility for imposing a veto on a transition timetable later this week. Irish and …

Leo goes to Washington

Larry Donnelly on March 16, 2018, 11:33 am

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The Taoiseach. Leo Varadkar, and his ministerial colleagues landed into the United States this week as the Trump White House is embroiled in turmoil. This St. Patrick’s week isn’t at all that strange, however, in the new, unprecedented political reality ushered in when the American people chose the bombastic billionaire over Hillary Clinton nearly a year and a half ago now. The dismissal of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, though it seemed to happen suddenly, has been in the works …

“Northern Ireland to become an EU province” after a Brexit breakdown. Did we not know that already?

Brian Walker on February 27, 2018, 11:46 am

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Tomorrow the EU will publish its legal version of December’s joint Report or Withdrawal Agreement that was supposed to guarantee against a hard border. The intention is to remove any idea of a fudged political deal that could be changed later. It will however become the EU’s law not the UK’s. Britain will argue that Withdrawal Agreement will be superseded as a result of a final free trade agreement. However as has been well trailed, it will omit the guarantees …

London and Dublin must clear their lines for close cooperation on direct rule

Brian Walker on February 16, 2018, 10:52 am

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Clarity rather than coyness is now needed over moves toward direct rule. Working on its scope and duration is one more compelling reason for London and Dublin to stick together. On Monday at the otherwise disastrous Stormont meeting, Theresa May and Leo Varadkar pledged “to work together on a new plan on how to achieve a frictionless Irish border.” Good luck to them with that. On the continuing local stand-off, two elements are essential. Enough action must be taken to …

Splits widen in May’s cabinet and party as Varadakar comes closer to backing Hammond’s version of a soft Brexit

Brian Walker on January 26, 2018, 12:11 am

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Brexit politics is hotting up amid the snows of Davos. The Brexiteer house paper the Daily Telegraph reports remarks from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar taking a soft Brexit line close to Chancellor Philip Hammond’s in the Swiss resort. Hammond is the key figure here. He has lit the blue touch paper to ignite the Tory right and earned himself a rebuke from a No 10 which is trying to damp down the first flickers of new surge against Theresa May’s weak …

Frances Fitzgerald resigns from cabinet

David McCann on November 28, 2017, 1:53 pm

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Statement in from the outgoing Tanaiste & Minister, Frances Fitzgerald; Today I made the decision to tender my resignation to the Taoiseach, stepping-down with immediate effect as Tánaiste and Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation. It has been the greatest honour of my life to serve in Government, but I believe it is necessary to take this decision to avoid an unwelcome and potentially destabilising general election at this historically critical time. “Throughout my career I have always sought to …

Ireland and the border has emerged as the current acid test. In their own interests, Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin should give Theresa May space to pass it

Brian Walker on November 25, 2017, 5:57 pm

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The current British position is admirably described by James Forsyth in the Brexit leaning, Conservative supporting Spectator. I can do no better than to quote it at length. It covers a viewpoint that cannot be dismissed by ardent Remainers like me. Whatever the mood music, it will be taken seriously in the chancelleries of Europe. For they see that the British are gradually shifting. The next few weeks are the time for quiet diplomacy with the megaphone put away and the tweeting held in check.

Former BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London

Out of left field, Sinn Fein launched the perfect storm. So let’s hear it for Leo

Brian Walker on November 24, 2017, 1:16 am

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Wouldn’t you know it? Sinn Fein put down a vote of no confidence first and so set the hare running. Can Fianna Fail afford to lag fortoise-like behind? In a sprung election no-one entirely wants just now, which party holds the initiative in the tangled web of minority government and balf in. half out opposition? Back wbere they still feel they belong for Fianna Fail under Micheal Martin? The Last hurrah for Gerry Adams or a rushed new hello …

Brexit and the border is widening the gap between London and Dublin and depressing further the chances of a return to Stormont

Brian Walker on November 21, 2017, 11:31 am

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It has started to happen. Will it continue? Can it be reversed? The politics of Brexit is openly dividing the UK and Irish governments and further polarising the DUP and Sinn Fein, making a return to the Executive less likely than ever. Predictably Brexit is increasingly becoming domesticated as the new big theme in a revived unionist v nationalist struggle. What’s just happened? The sequence was best described in a cool- headed column in the Indo by Dan O’Brien, chief …

Brexit is in a mess, but not irretrievably

Brian Walker on November 15, 2017, 2:48 pm

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Want to know where we really are on Brexit? In three words, in a mess. Can we get out of it? Possibly at the eleventh hour, 10 pm on Friday 19 March 2019, just like the Good Friday Agreement in fact. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. As so often – like the Stormont standoff – the politics look more difficult than the rational solutions. The Irish and British prime ministers profess themselves in the dark about each others’ …

On the Stormont deadlock, time now to test party positions and introduce a mediator

Brian Walker on October 18, 2017, 1:55 pm

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If the Irish Times is right, Dublin HQ has prevented Michelle O’Neill from striking a political deal. It is a deplorable fact that throughout this 10 month deadlock, so little is reliably known about party positions beyond nods, winks and notoriously unreliable mood music. At least in the Brexit negotiations the principals give some sort of account after every session. Times have changed since 1998. Then, reasons for secrecy were far more credible. The main agenda for much of the …

Leo Varadkar: “we need to build more bridges and fewer borders”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on August 4, 2017, 5:38 pm

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LEO VARADKAR delivered a robust but polite lecture at Queen’s University Belfast this morning, his first public engagement in Northern Ireland in his new role as Taoiseach. The artfully crafted speech quoted local poets and Winston Churchill as well as ending with a positive story that echoed something he’d recently heard Jeffrey Donaldson say in Dublin. This was not a speech that intended to be divisive. It offered a partial policy framework, but very little in the way of absolute red lines or dogmatic solutions. However, they were definitely not the words of a political pushover.

“Rainy Days Back In Fashion”: The Week In Irish Politics

Eoin Neylon on July 12, 2017, 4:42 pm

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Another week, another glimpse of ‘new politics’ at work in Dáil Éireann. The Green party’s Waste Reduction Bill, (co-sponsored by Labour as the Greens are short on number in the chamber), passed to committee stage late last night. It did so with the support of Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and a host of Independents. Its supporters argue that it’s by far the best way to reduce waste by putting the onus on companies to reduce packaging while …

The Week in Irish Politics

Eoin Neylon on June 29, 2017, 10:58 am

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After a roller-coaster first week in office, the new Varadkar administration would have viewed their second week as a cake walk by comparison. With both sides of the house still smarting from a row over judicial appointments, they were all keen to move on. “We definitely do not want to cause a needless election” seemed to be a common refrain in the corridors of Leinster House in the aftermath. It’s possibly more accurate to say that no one wants to …