Varadkar vows to adopt ‘more careful’ tone for communication

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has agreed he can be “too blunt”, saying he will have to be “more careful” about how he speaks in the future.

Mr Varadkar told reporters at a pre-Christmas interview that it was “probably in my nature and my personality to give a straight answer to a straight question”.

Asked if he was sometimes too honest and too blunt and if that at times did not endear him to people, he agreed. “Yeah, I guess so. That is something I will be more careful with, quite frankly.”

While he defended being forthright in politics, he conceded that “tone is important and often it’s important not just what you say, but how you say it”.

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In the past, the Taoiseach said there had been examples where he had “said things that are factually true, but sometimes the way you say them, can come across wrong or come across as though you don’t understand or you don’t care”.

Rows and controversies

“That is something I need to be more careful about in the future. I intend to be,” he said, adding: “I won’t be perfect.”

The Taoiseach said that it was “the nature of politics” that people sometimes “don’t want to answer questions because they don’t want to start a row or start a controversy”.

“That actually makes sense in my view. But it is about getting the balance right, I suppose.”

Last month, Mr Varadkar was sharply criticised over comments he made in a radio interview that young people emigrating could encounter the same problems abroad as at home. “You’re not going to find that rents are lower in New York or that it’s easier to buy a house in Sydney. Sometimes the grass looks greener,” he said, triggering a series of sharp political exchanges.

Explaining his comments in the Dáil, Mr Varadkar accepted that on rental costs “we compare unfavourably with most other European capital cities, perhaps all”. But he held to his view that housing was a problem in many countries and that rents were more expensive in the cities he named.

[ ‘The beauty and risk of Leo’: Pressure is on for Varadkar to deliver as taoiseach ]

Forthright comments

Much of Mr Varadkar’s early political profile was built on the back of forthright comments, most notably his intervention in favour of Garda whistleblowers whom he described as “distinguished” while serving as minister for transport. The manner in which allegations by the whistleblowers had come to light had previously been described as “quite disgusting” by then Garda commissioner Martin Callinan.

However, he has also provoked controversy and on occasion been forced to apologise for causing offence. In 2011, newly appointed to Cabinet, he suggested Ireland would likely need a second bailout six months after entering the EU-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank troika programme.

While an opposition TD, Mr Varadkar wrote a letter to former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald in an effort to explain remarks he had made in the Dáil, which he later said he regretted. He told then taoiseach Brian Cowen he was a “Garret FitzGerald” because he had “tripled the national debt and had effectively destroyed the country”, rather than a Seán Lemass or Jack Lynch figure.

While minister for health, he again courted controversy when he wrote to senior hospital and Health Service Executive managers that “heads will roll” if hospital overcrowding initiatives did not succeed. During his first stint as taoiseach, he apologised for offending Catholic priests after comparing his now tánaiste Micheál Martin to “a secretly sinning priest” during Dáil exchanges.