Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar has denied he is bidding for the Fine Gael leadership.

Mr Varadkar’s plans to index social welfare payments has been seen by some as a bid for the position.

Speaking on Friday morning Mr Varadkar said that was an unfair characterisation of his comments.

He said: “No matter what I say or do for the past six months some people are linking to the leadership of Fine Gael and I am just waiting on the day when I sit on the toilet and some commentator somewhere decides that is part of some strategy.

“It is not. I am the Minister for Social Protection, these are my responsibilities and I attended a summer school and of course I am going to talk about the future of social protection.”

Mr Varadkar said he would not lose any sleep over the suggestion he was bidding for the leadership through a series of announcements.

The Minister detailed his proposals to link social welfare rates to the cost of living or average earning at the MacGill summer school this week.

Speaking on his way into a pre-Budget forum Mr Varadkar said he had spoken individually to Government Ministers about his plans but had not brought it up at Cabinet.

He said it would not affect this year’s Budget so the conversation would have been premature.