Leo to raise gay rights with Trump

LEO Varadkar says he will raise gay rights, women’s rights and trade when he meets Donald Trump next week.

But the Taoiseach did not say whether he would repeat Enda Kenny’s invitation to the US president to visit Ireland during his term of office, when they have the traditional St Patrick’s Day get-together in the Oval Office of the White House on this day next week.

And he refused to join in the stinging criticism of Mr Trump by Socialist TD Paul Murphy, who said the president was ‘the ugly face of a capitalist system devoted to maximising profit’. Mr Murphy said: ‘The best thing the Taoiseach could do would be to refuse to meet him, refuse to allow his racist, anti-immigrant policies to be greenwashed with a bowl of shamrock.’

He told Ireland’s first gay Taoiseach that Mr Trump implemented a series of anti-LGBT measures, ‘including an attempt to ban transgender people from the military and overturning protections for trans students’.

The Taoiseach replied that both governments have very strong links that are extremely important ‘and I want to maintain and strengthen them’.

But he added: ‘There are many of Donald Trump’s policies with which I do not agree. I do not agree with him on migration, climate change or trade. I also believe very strongly in individual freedom, which encompasses women’s rights and the rights of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.’

He said he would use the meeting to raise some of those issues, ‘specifically those relating to trade’.