Leo Varadkar's partner 'delighted' with Taoiseach's decision to step down
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Leo Varadkar has said his partner is "delighted" following his shock decision to step down as Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach.
Mr Varadkar announced his resignation as leader in an emotional speech on Wednesday.
Speaking in Brussels, Mr Varadkar said his partner Dr Matt Barrett was "delighted" as "this life was never really for him".
“I’m here in Brussels today, I’ve been coming to Brussels for nearly 14 years now without a break representing the country.
"It can’t be forever and I don’t want it to be forever. I left Leinster House last night at nearly 10pm. I went home, had a takeaway, had a chat with my partner and got up at 6.45am to get on a plane at 8 o’clock. You don’t need to do that forever."
Mr Varadkar is in Brussels for his final EU summit discussing the war in Ukraine and the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.
He said Ireland was leading the calls for a unified position in calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, although two countries — Austria and the Czech Republic — are blocking this.
"The response to the appalling crisis in Palestine has not been Europe's finest hour quite frankly, and it has been undermining particularly on our efforts to defend Ukraine because so many countries in the global south — also known as most of the world — interpret Europe's actions on Ukraine as double standards, and I think they've a point quite frankly.
"But things have changed, when we were here in November our position was the minority view, it's now very much the majority view.'
Meanwhile, Mr Varadkar said there was "no one thing’" that influenced the decision to step down as Taoiseach, other than it being "time to move on".
He said he had been weighing up the decision to leave the role at Christmas, but affirmed the decision last weekend.
“I made the final decision at the weekend and once it was made in my mind it was important to act on it, particularly with the ard fheis coming."
Mr Varadkar also insisted there were no plans for jobs elsewhere and he was not resigning his seat for Fine Gael in Dublin West constituency. However, he has not decided if he will contest the next general election.