After Bono’s gushing notes, the Taoiseach hails ‘musical genius’
LEO Varadkar has returned the gushing compliments paid to him by Bono – praising the U2 frontman as a ‘real rock star’ and a ‘musical genius’.
The Irish Daily Mail revealed on Monday how the U2 frontman sang the praises of Leo Varadkar in a series of gushing letters – hailing the Taoiseach as a ‘21stcentury leader’.
In his sycophantic correspondence penned in recent months, Sweetest Thing singer Bono said he was ‘unutterably proud’ of the Fine Gael leader, who he referred to as ‘Dear Taoiseach, Leo.’
And yesterday the Taoiseach returned the compliment, lauding Bono a great humanitarian.
In late December, Bono wrote to the Taoiseach after an ‘inspiring’ dinner meeting with him, Simon Coveney, Paschal Donohoe and Government secretary general Martin Fraser to describe how ‘unutterably proud’ he felt the country had been ‘entrusted to three wise men and their 21stcentury leader’.
And at the end of January, he emailed Mr Varadkar after his attendance at the economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, to tell him that ‘by all accounts you made your presence felt and Ireland proud over there (sic)’.
When asked about this correspondence yesterday in Berlin, Mr Varadkar had no hesitation in heaping praise upon his fellow northside native.
‘I think he is somebody who is a musical genius and a real rock star,’ the Taoiseach told the Mail. ‘And also more importantly than that, somebody who uses his fame and celebrity to try to do good in the world. Particularly around development issues in Africa.’
Much of the first letter Bono sent the Taoiseach on personalised headed paper on December 20 was redacted. But Bono did pen that there was ‘lots of exciting stuff to plot and plan’ as he thanked Mr Varadkar for ‘making time to discuss the poorest and most vulnerable far from our shores, on top of everything you are fighting for here at home’.
Passages of the letter were redacted as they were deemed by the Freedom of Information decision maker ‘not relevant’ or they ‘related to security, defence and international’ issues as well as ‘economic and financial interests of the State and public bodies’.
‘A musical genius and real rock star’
And when asked yesterday what had been discussed at the December meeting, Mr Varadkar said it was in relation to international development issues.
This meeting had also been attended by Jamie Drummond from the ONE charity, which Bono co-founded.
The Taoiseach said: ‘That’s what the meeting was about, it was a meeting with the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Public Expenditure to talk about how Ireland will increase its commitment to international development over the next couple of years. We’ve already started to increase our international development budget again, have done for the last two years and we intend to do so over the next couple of years.
‘And one of the things that he was very keen that we do is put a little bit more money into the education of women and girls in Africa and we have done that.’
Bono’s ONE charity, which helps impoverished people in African and other countries, came under the spotlight this month after the Mail on Sunday revealed employee allegations of bullying and abuse in its Johannesburg office. Responding to the controversy, Bono said he was ‘deeply sorry’ and ‘furious’.
‘Uses his fame to try to do good’