Leo Varadkar reveals he sometimes feared for his safety as Taoiseach
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Leo Varadkar has revealed there were times when he was fearful for his own safety during his tenure as Taoiseach.
The former Fine Gael leader, who announced he will not be contesting the next general election, said that he never let security threats “bother” him.
It comes following reports that gardaí increased his security in 2022 following heightened security threats.
Mr Varadkar also said that he instructed gardaí not to give him too much information about potential threats as he did not want to be distracted from his work.
The TD for Dublin West confirmed on Tuesday that he would not contest the next general election.
Mr Varadkar, 45, announced he would resign as Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader in March, saying he felt he was no longer the right person to lead his party.
He then described his decision as both “personal and political”.
He was succeeded as party leader and Taoiseach by Simon Harris in April.
Asked if there were times he feared for his own safety, Mr Varadkar said: “There were a number of times.
“On the night of the Dublin riots, I was advised not to go home and I didn’t. I stayed somewhere else. But I never let that bother me.
“One thing I would have asked the gardaí was not to advise me or give me too much information about security threats unless I really needed to know for some reason.
“I didn’t want to be distracted by potential security threats or always looking over my shoulder, so I asked that they not give me detailed briefings unless there was some particular reason to do so, and I think that’s probably the right decision.
“I think I was very fortunate that I was able to lead a relatively normal life during my time as Taoiseach and in politics.
“Now I want to lead a very normal life, and I’m kind of grateful for that.
“I’ve spoken to people who are heads of government in other countries, or people who are senior politicians in other countries, and some of them can’t even go to a restaurant because they have to shut down the whole restaurant or the block. Some of them can’t go to the shops, can’t go to the cinema and really do live in a security bubble.
“I’m really grateful that wasn’t the case for me, and largely isn’t the case for in Ireland yet, like of course there are security threats to politicians, but it’s still a relatively safe country.”
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1’s Today with Claire Byrne on Wednesday, he said he knew that a rise in the “far right” would make its way to Ireland.
“Ireland is a normal European country, and almost every country in the European Union has experienced high levels of migration, big increases in the number of asylum seekers in recent years.
“We’re not unique in any way, in fact we’re just one of the last to experience it.
“Up until recent years, the number of asylum seekers coming to Ireland would have been well below the European average. It’s only now hitting or exceeding the European average in the last two or three years, and we’ve seen across Europe and across the western world that when that happens there is a backlash.
“We did our best to plan for it, but it’s not something that’s easily preventable. It is something that has to be managed.”
Mr Varadkar said he believes it is a phase that the western world is going through.
“There are a lot of people who either struggle to understand or oppose or can’t cope with the way the world is changing, economically, demographically, becoming more globalised, becoming more interconnected, and there’s going to be a backlash against that. But the future isn’t theirs,” he said.
He added: “So what we see where there’s a backlash against migration around the world, whatever the problem is gets blamed on the migrants.
“In Ireland, one of our biggest problems is, of course, the housing shortage. So the migrants get the blame. In other countries it’s crime, in other countries where there’s high levels of unemployment, ‘the migrants are taking our jobs’.
“Even in Greece, where there were forest fires that were blamed on the migrants. Go back in history, the plague was blamed on Jewish people and on migrants.
“Throughout history, people blaming the other, the people that don’t look like me, don’t behave like me, don’t speak like me, they must be the cause of all my problems, and we have to call it out for what it is.
“That’s not to say that people don’t have genuine concerns. When the population increases dramatically, it puts pressure on services, but blaming migrants or people who look different, behave different, for all my problems or the country’s problems, that’s not right and not based on fact.”