Following Leo Varadkar's surprise announcement this afternoon all eyes were on the day's Dáil proceedings which saw a sharp exchange between the outgoing Taoiseach and West Cork's Holly Cairns.
The Social Democrats leader took issue with the Taoiseach referring to solving all major challenges facing Ireland as a 'fairytale' and in his response, Varadker described Cairns as being a "politician of the social media age" who is more concerned with getting a positive clip to post online rather than the cold hard truth of the matter.
While responding to questions posed by the opposition, the Taoiseach said the following:
“We’ve come through a very serious cost of living and inflation crisis which is now coming to an end and the truth is Deputy that we are never going to wake up in a country that doesn’t have problems or challenges. There will always be problems and challenges, there will always be a crisis and if not one there will be two or three that perfect country that has no problems, it doesn’t exist, it only exists in fairytales and we need to be honest with the public about that."
Cairns expressed her displeasure at the statement, insisting that all challenges facing our country can be solved and the government has failed to properly acknowledge them. In response to the Taoiseach, she said:
"One of the biggest problems for this government is not being able to acknowledge the issues people are facing and to refer to them - if they were to be addressed - as fairytales is farcical. It’s not a fairytale to have access to disability services, it’s not a fairytale to be able to own a home in this country - none of these things should be considered fairytales."
Varadkar then accused Cairns of engaging in dishonest politics in the hopes of getting a good video clip to post online, he said:
"Deputy, I pay attention to what you say a lot and what your party says and you say you stand for one of three principles, one of your three principles is that social democrats stand for honest politics. So why was it necessary to misrepresent and twist my words in the way that you did? Why was that necessary?
"My fear Deputy - and I think there’s potential in you and I think there’s potential in your party - but my fear is an obvious one, I think you’re very much a politician of the social media age, it’s not about truth, it’s not about information, it’s about the clip to put online and if that means misinformation or disinformation - well if it gets more clicks or likes, then more of it."
This exchange took place as Varadkar explained his reasons for stepping down as Taoiseach, with many opposition TDs using the opportunity to get in a few tough questions with the increased attention around the Dáil this afternoon. Speculation is already rife as to who will replace Varadkar both as Taoiseach and Fine Gael party leader.
Simon Harris, Simon Coveney and Helen McEntee are just some of the names being thrown around but opposition leaders - including Cairns - have called for a general election.
Varadkar's party colleague and Cork-based TD Colm Burke said the announcement came as a shock to even Fine Gael insiders and that all but a select few were in the dark until about 10:45 a.m. today. Teachta Burke believes that the Taoiseach feels as if he has lost the confidence of the public over the last 12 months and that's hindered his ability to get things done.
He said: “I think it’s a number of things, over the last twelve months he had his status very much undermined in the sense of - not so much undermined as he felt he didn’t have the support of the general public in the things we’ve been trying to get done."
The Cork North-Central TD stressed that major steps forward had been made under Varadkar's leadership, highlighting that approximately 800,000 more people are now in the workforce, the construction of new housing has exceeded projections and in terms of handling a global crisis, Ireland did very well in reaction to the pandemic.
Teachta Burke was then asked if there was any desire for a general election amongst the coalition, to which he responded: "I don’t think [there’s an appetite for a general election], I think there’s a lot of things we want to deliver on, we need to continue to work with regards to the creation of employment, we need to continue to work in relation to dealing with the challenges that we have," he told Patricia Messinger on C103's Cork Today Show.
"You can take healthcare for instance, with the HSE you can go back to December 2014 there were 103,000 people working in the HSE, now it’s over 145,000 people working. That’s an increase of over 40% and we have facilities to deliver on whether it’s primary care centres, hospital extensions, whether it’s the new elective hospital which I want built in Cork, we’ve all those to progress."
While the Gurranabraher-based TD believes Varadkar has a good tenure as Taoiseach, opposition TDs have condemned Vardakar's time in office with Mick Barry referring to the Taoiseach as 'out of touch' with the people and having shown his "true Thatcherite colours" in a recent interview on RTE's Six O'Clock Show.
With calls for a general election growing louder, it looks like we could see a significant shift in the Irish political landscape over the coming months.
