Leo Eric Varadkar is an Irish Fine Gael politician and physician. He has served as Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment since June 2020 and Leader of Fine Gael since June 2017. He previously served as Taoiseach and. Minister for Defence from 2017 to 2020, Minister for Social Protection from 2016 to 2017, Minister. for Health from 2014 to 2016 and Minister of Transport, Tourism and Sport from 2011 to 2014. He is Ireland’s first, and the world’s fourth, openly gay head of government.
About Leo Varadkar in brief
Leo Eric Varadkar is an Irish Fine Gael politician and physician. He has served as Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment since June 2020 and Leader of Fine Gael since June 2017. He previously served as Taoiseach and. Minister for Defence from 2017 to 2020, Minister for Social Protection from 2016 to 2017, Minister. for Health from 2014 to 2016 and Minister of Transport, Tourism and Sport from 2011 to 2014. He is Ireland’s first, and the world’s fourth, openly gay head of government. He was included in Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2018. He came out as gay during the 2015 same-sex marriage referendum, becoming the first serving Irish minister to do so. In 2020, he called a general election held in February. Fine Gael ultimately came third in terms of seats and votes, behind Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, with 35 seats, a loss of 15 seats for the party from the previous general election, when it had come in first position. His father was born in Bombay, India, and moved to the United Kingdom in the 1960s, to work as a doctor. His mother, born in Dungarvan, County Waterford, met her future husband while working as a nurse in Slough. In 1971, they married in the UK in a Catholic ceremony in which both Catholic bride and Hindu groom agreed per Matrimonia Mixta to raise any children as Catholics. They lived in Leicester, where the eldest of their three children, Sophie, was born.
The family moved to India, before settling in Dublin in 1973, where their second child, Sonia, was birth. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in medicine in 2003. In 2004, he joined Fine Gael and became a member of Fingal County Council and later served as Deputy Mayor. In 2007, he was elected to Dáil Éireann for the first time in 2007. At the local elections, he received the highest-preference vote in the country with 4,894 votes. At 20 years old and a second-year medical student, he contested unsuccessfully in local elections in Mulhuddart, County Dublin. In 2010, he was elected to Fine Gael Éirean as a TD for the Dublin West constituency. At 38 years old, he became the youngest person to hold the office. In May 2017, he stood in the leadership election to replace him; although more party members voted for his opponent, Simon Coveney, he won by a significant margin among Fine Gael members of the Oireachtas, and was elected leader on 2 June. He resigned and was succeeded by Micheál Martin as Taoisteach. In June 2018, he announced that he would not stand for re-election as Fine Gael leader in the next general election in May 2019. He was selected for the Washington Ireland Program for Service and Leadership, a half-year personal and professional development program in Washington, D. C., for students from Ireland.
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