Leo Varadkar stepped out of Government Buildings on Wednesday into the spring sunshine to read from a script that would kick-start one of the most dramatic weeks in this Coalition’s history.
His dynamite decision to step down as Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach precipitated a breakneck leadership race in the party, a potentially destabilising Cabinet reshuffle and a fundamental change in what makes the top level of this three-party Coalition Government work: its personalities.
Varadkar said the idea of stepping down first entered his head around Christmas. What exactly happened in December and in the weeks since then? How did he come to a final decision after his annual St Patrick’s Day trip to Washington?
And how did Fine Gael Minister for Further Education Simon Harris, despite being stunned by the news, roll out a finely tuned and seemingly orchestrated campaign to beat a rapid path to the taoiseach’s office?
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Varadkar has said “no one thing” triggered his decision.
Colleagues and friends say that with the benefit of hindsight, there were telltale clues scattered along the way.
One politician remembers a recent dinner in a European city, where he saw a different version of Varadkar. “He sat down and looked around, and then he relaxed and talked about how lovely it was not to have to spend the whole meal worrying about the table next to him potentially filming him,” they said.
On another work trip abroad, he joined a colleague for a pint outdoors in the sunshine. “I remember him enjoying it and making a comment about how he can’t sit outdoors in Dublin.”
Since his announcement, commentators and party members alike have been searching for the tipping point.
It seems that last Christmas, he found time to think.
It was around this time that Varadkar received an unwelcome phone call. Ciaran Cannon, an experienced politician in the party, gave Varadkar the bad news: he wanted out. When he announced his departure on Tuesday, a day before Varadkar’s, it made him the 10th Fine Gael politician to quit at the next election. An exodus of established Fine Gael vote-getters spelt trouble.
As the new year dawned, and with it an increased focus on the Government’s immigration policy, parliamentary party members felt Varadkar was looking at them with his own questions, exasperated with their performance.
“There were times over the past few months where I felt he was looking around the room thinking well, what about you guys? I only have 24 hours in a day, what are you doing?” one Senator said.
Along with this malaise came a bigger problem: Varadkar seemed to be all out of ideas.
With the ardfheis coming up in early April, the Taoiseach sat down to get to work on his speech. What needed to be done to galvanise the party? What big policies were in the works? When it came time to put pen to paper, he couldn’t imagine what the answers were.
Once the idea of leaving set in over Christmas, it grew roots.
A member of his team said Varadkar felt the timing of any such decision had to be right for him. Pessimistic predictions about the local and European elections may have fed into his considerations around timing. Then there was the upcoming ardfheis (on April 6th) and the ever-growing list of engagements that the Taoiseach had committed to.
“There was always something on, I guess – the institutions in the North getting up and running, the referendum campaign, the St Patrick’s Day trip,” an official on his team said.
The referendum campaign was a disaster. It was described as lacklustre, halfhearted and ill-thought out.
Within Fine Gael, the finger of blame was very firmly being pointed at him. In local branch WhatsApp groups, there was blowback against Varadkar with unforgiving comments being made. The Taoiseach employs an army of advisers to be his eyes and ears. It’s hard to imagine a circumstance in which he was not aware of the rumblings.
Out of gas, out of favour with the public, and reportedly growing weary of foreign travel and the media circus that came with it, Varadkar made his way to Washington DC.
The Taoiseach came out of the White House late on the afternoon of St Patrick’s Day. In the sun-splattered garden, he described an unforgettable day with president Joe Biden that included the age-old shamrock ceremony and a hard-hitting speech in which he denounced Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza.
The first question he was asked by the waiting media doughnut was if this was his last time representing Ireland as taoiseach in the White House.
“Look it, I don’t know,” he replied. He expounded by saying the question implicitly asked when the next election would be held and if Fine Gael would be in government.
But, at that moment, Varadkar privately knew that he would never visit the White House again as taoiseach. Over the weekend, and particularly during some “reflection time” on Saturday, he had come to the conclusion that his seven years as Taoiseach had come to an end.
The job had taken its toll. “More than seven years of long days, late evenings, most weekends, a lot of travel. I need to stop that for a while,” he later reflected.
A source close to Varadkar said only a handful of his closest confidantes – both personal and professional – were abreast of his thinking on his own future.
“It is a sign of their loyalty to him that none leaked the information,” said the source.
On the face of it, it looked like business as usual upon his return.
At 7pm on Tuesday the most powerful figures in the Coalition all assembled in the Sycamore Room of Government Buildings.
Present were the three Coalition party leaders – Varadkar, Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan – and their respective senior advisers Brian Murphy, Deirdre Gillane and Éamonn Fahey.
Neither Martin nor Ryan had reason to believe this week would be any different.
The meeting was winding up just after 8pm when Varadkar asked the other two leaders to stay on as there was something he wanted to discuss with them.
Over the following half-hour in private conversation he relayed his intentions. Martin was stunned by the news, as was Ryan, but Ryan later said when it was explained to him, he understood why.
The Taoiseach then rang his deputy leader, Simon Coveney, and told him the news.
In the morning, the rest of the Fine Gael Ministers assembled for their routine weekly pre-Cabinet meeting where they heard the bombshell news in person.
They couldn’t believe their ears. At 10am, they trooped into the Cabinet room, shell-shocked. It wasn’t until the end of that meeting, lasting an hour and 45 minutes, that the remainder of the Fianna Fáil and Green Party Ministers learned that Ireland was to get a new taoiseach.
I always hoped to run one day, I just never thought the day would be today
— Simon Harris reportedly told a supporter
“Total shock,” was all one person in the room could manage to say after.
A press conference with only Varadkar in attendance was called for noon. Word began to filter out from about 9.30am that something big was brewing. Varadkar arrived to the podium flanked by his Cabinet colleagues. Teams of advisers from across the Coalition stood apart from the media, struggling to keep their true feelings off their faces.
“When I became party leader and Taoiseach back in June 2017, I knew that one part of leadership is knowing when the time has come to pass on the baton to someone else. And then having the courage to do it. That time is now,” he said.
Behind Varadkar, Simon Harris cut a sombre figure. Already, in that courtyard, there were whispers from some Government onlookers of a potential uncontested Fine Gael leadership campaign.
The texts began to fly immediately.
Within minutes of the speech ending, Senators and TDs were already huddled in the Dáil members’ bar plotting their futures under a Simon Harris leadership.
One TD rang Harris in the afternoon and told him he wanted to offer his support, would go out to bat for him on radio and would use his sway with the other party members.
Harris reportedly told this eager supporter: “I always hoped to run one day, I just never thought the day would be today.”
Another source said, “The wheels started rolling fast from early on.”
Harris and his team found themselves fielding an increasing number of calls from the parliamentary party and from councillors, but Harris and his team were also courting support.
For the other leadership candidates, Wednesday was a more static affair.
By evening, one Fine Gael Minister, Simon Coveney, had ruled himself out.
One member of the parliamentary party bumped into Paschal Donohoe, the Fine Gael Minister for Public Expenditure, soon after Varadkar dropped his bombshell speech.
“If he was really going for it, he would have said. And he never said a word. Never asked me anything,” Donohoe told the party member, according to their account.
It appears that another Fine Gael Cabinet member Heather Humphreys went home on Wednesday night and gave the prospect of running real thought, and spoke to her family. She was contacted by members who said they would back her.
By morning, though, she had made up her mind. She held a summit with Harris at about 10am on the ministerial corridor and it would appear a deal was done, potentially cementing her position as deputy leader.
The only real wild card was Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, a Fine Gael Minister of State who is understood to have gone on manoeuvres and scoped out her options. In the end, she realised it was too early for her.
Right into the small hours of the morning, Harris and his advisers Sarah Bardon, Max Murphy and John Kelly chipped away on a list of definites, maybes and nos. With 20 solid promises of support by nightfall, the game was afoot.
Thank you all, sincerely, for your support, loyalty and encouragement these past seven years. I will always be grateful for that and I hope I can repay it in some small way in the future. Don’t be a stranger
— Leo Varadkar
The endorsements came thick and fast on Thursday morning.
The first member of the parliamentary party to break cover was Senator Barry Ward at 7:59am. Neale Richmond, a Fine Gael Minister of State, having offered his support the previous day, rang Harris’s team ahead of time and told them that he had been invited on Morning Ireland and it was agreed he would do the programme. By 8:45am, Harris had the required six signatures. The dominoes began to fall rapidly. By lunch, it was his.
Helen McEntee, Minister for Justice, had bowed out but twice declined in public to back Harris before issuing a statement doing just that, right before Humphreys appeared on RTÉ’s News at One to throw in the towel and back Harris. A statement from Donohoe was issued at the same time, stepping out of the race.
Harris later appeared on the RTÉ's Six One news as the country’s next taoiseach-in-waiting, his staff watching on, wilting after only a few hours’ sleep the night before.
Varadkar has said much in public both at home and abroad this week, but there was one line in an email which he sent to his party members that caught their eye.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all, sincerely, for your support, loyalty and encouragement these past seven years,” he said. “I will always be grateful for that and I hope I can repay it in some small way in the future. Don’t be a stranger.”
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