Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Leo Varadkar
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Irish politician Leo Varadkar.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Fine Gael is the party of opportunity, and no matter what background you come from, we give people a chance, and it gave me a chance.
One of the big problems in Dail Eireann is the lack of women.
The gutter is Bertie Ahern's natural habitat.
What are these better deals the U.K. really wants from Europe and other countries? Some more clarity would be helpful.
What I would rather see, what I think would be the best outcome, is a very close relationship between the United Kingdom and the E.U.
I consider myself pro-life, as I accept that the unborn is a human life with rights, and I do not support abortion on request or on demand.
Enda Kenny has the full support of the Fine Gael parliamentary party.
It's the middle class; it's middle Ireland, and it's a group of people who often feel that they contribute a lot to the economy and a lot to society, but maybe they don't get as much back for it as they should.
Prejudice has no hold in this Republic.
What I would like to build is a new centre, a wider, broader centre, which would encompass a lot of different philosophies - you know, the philosophy that I'm putting forward that is a market liberal philosophy and a socially liberal philosophy but would have room in it for a broader church than that.
I always think that friends and family are off-bounds. I went into politics; they didn't.
What I do now is I train in the mornings, and people ask me why I do it. I do it for two reasons: first of all, to keep in shape, but secondly, I think training, sport, and physical activity is really good for mental health.
If Britain doesn't stay in the Single Market or Customs Union, we are very much in favor of a free trade agreement between the U.K. and Europe. We don't want Britain to be punished for its decision to leave, and it is not in our interests for Britain to be punished because we may be the ones who lose out as much if not more than them.
I was with my mum in the shops, a ladies boutique or something, and I was asked what I wanted to be when I grow up. I think you're supposed to say an ambulance man or a footballer or a soldier or something like that, and I told all my mother's friends that I wanted to be Minister for Health. She was mortified, needless to say.
I know when my father travelled 5,000 miles to make his home in Ireland, I doubt he ever dreamed that his son would one day grow up to be its leader.
I've realised that doctors can only help change a certain number of patients, but a Minister of Health can really change things.
I'm not going to tell the American president how to run America, but I think it is important that when friends are speaking to each other that they are able to be very frank in the views that are exchanged, and I certainly will be doing that.
It's not that I'm afraid to be tagged with the label of right-wing or even centre-right; I just don't believe it properly describes either the choice that we face politically or what I'm trying to say.
I am not so naive to think that I can make every problem in the health service go away. No minister can. And never will be able to.
There are far too many people who get up early in the morning, and work hard, who cannot make ends meet.
We can't have a government that will collapse in three months.
When a hospital is very crowded, there will be a real push to make sure people get their X-rays, get their tests and, you know, 'Let's get them out in four days'.
I am a gay man. It's not a secret, but not something that everyone would necessarily know.
Mum is from West Waterford, Dungarvan. She's a farmer's daughter. She's a nurse. She left home very young - I think she was 18 - and went off to train as a nurse in England. My dad is from India, just south of Mumbai. He was one of the first in his family to go to college, and he went to England in the '70s; he emigrated there.
We really need to come behind and press for marriage equality in Northern Ireland.
People travel overseas to do things overseas that aren't legal in Ireland all the time. You know, are we going to stop people going to Las Vegas? Are we going to stop people going to Amsterdam? There are things that are illegal in Ireland, and we don't prevent people from travelling overseas to avail of them.
I have enormous respect for people who come from a strong family background in Fine Gael.
If you want to change things, politics is the best way to do that.
It's not something that defines me. I'm not a half-Indian politician or a doctor politician or a gay politician for that matter... it is part of my character, I suppose.
Obviously, nobody likes to read or hear about anyone having a bad experience in our hospitals.
We would only need a bespoke solution for Northern Ireland if Britain leaves the Single Market.
I miss being able to have a drink in my local pub, which I can't do anymore, or being able to go to the shops without every second person staring at me and looking at my basket to see what I'm buying.
Unless people who voted for unionist parties are suddenly going to vote for a united Ireland, which I don't believe will happen, a border poll will be defeated.
It's up to American citizens to decide who they elect as president.
I think there should be a law that would allow the Oireachtas to take pensions away from people. That would go for corrupt politicians; it would go for public servants who failed miserably or were incompetent.
My job as Taoiseach, and the job of any government, of course, is to represent all people.
I keep my private life to myself, and that's going to continue.
I just want people to know that whatever decisions are made on any issue, I'll make them according to what I believe is in the public interest and my own conscience.
The traditional divide between left and right, capital and labor, small state and big state, high taxes and low taxes doesn't define politics in the way it did in the past.
I won't be allowing my own background or my own sexual orientation to dictate the decisions that I make.
I suppose I've always put the career, the job and politics, all of that first.
When a hospital isn't under as much pressure, you start to see things slowing down, and it might take five, six, seven days to get the person discharged, and that's the length of stay, so it's all these different factors come into play all the time.
I don't rule out raising some taxes into the future.
There should be no economic border at all between the North and South.
If I was to describe myself in terms of a political philosophy, I'd cast myself as a social and economic liberal, which is typically what people describe as being left-of-centre on social issues and right-of-centre on economic issues.
Those of us who are in the centre believe in opening up to the world, believe migration on balance is a good thing if it is managed properly, and believe that multilateralism is the best way to solve problems.
We will, of course, work with whoever Americans decide to elect as president.
My difficulty with the whole right-left construct is that I don't think it describes modern politics or the modern choices that people face in the world.
My mum wanted me to be a doctor like my dad, and at 7, I really wanted to be a politician, and I managed in my mind to combine the two.
Nobody that I know would ever say that I'm sexist.
I do think corporations should pay their tax.
Geographically, we are at the periphery of Europe, but I don't see Ireland in that way. The way I see us is as an island at the center of the world.
It's fair to say that the policy and character of my government would be, or the government which I lead, would be very different to that of President Trump.
I'll demand of myself and my own government what, in the past, I insisted of others.
I don't think you can make America great again by trying to go back to an old coal-based manufacturing economy that doesn't really exist anymore.
I find it scary when people talk about me as a future leader. It's like putting a big target on your back.
Marriage in our Constitution is very clear that it's a man marrying a woman, largely with a view to having a natural family, and if they are unable to do that, obviously then they can adopt.
Neither of my parents are involved in politics or anything like that, but my dad is political, certainly, and we would have always talked about politics and religion and money, and all those things that you're not supposed to talk about at the dinner table, we did.
I hope the unionist parties, for example, who would be keen to protect and preserve the Union would see that it's much easier to do that if the U.K. stays within the Customs Union and the Single Market, because that would take away the need for any special arrangement, or bespoke solution, for Northern Ireland.
Around the world, people look to Ireland as a country where it doesn't matter where you come from but where you want to go.
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