Sinn Fein demands immediate election after Taoiseach resigns

SINN FEIN called for immediate elections after Leo Varadkar’s shock resignation as Ireland’s prime minister yesterday.

“I don’t feel I’m the best person for that job anymore,” Mr Varadkar said as he announced the end of his second stint as Taoiseach outside Government Buildings in Dublin shortly after noon.

Ireland’s first openly gay leader, and its youngest at 38 when he first took up the role in 2017, said there would not be an early general election before the March 2025 deadline for the vote.

Mr Varadkar, who is half Indian and the first member of an ethnic minority to be Taoiseach, said he would stay on until Fine Gael appointed his replacement, which should happen before April 16.

“This is a time for fresh leadership. A time for change. Not just time for a new Taoiseach, but time for a new Government,” said Sinn Fein president Mary Lou Mcdonald in the Irish parliament afterwards. She added: “The decision of who now leads the government as Taoiseach must be placed in the hands of the people.”

“Well I didn’t see that coming when we came into work today,” Ms Mcdonald said later that evening.

Sinn Fein is the most popular party in the Republic of Ireland. Since overtaking the centre-right Fine Gael in 2020, the left wing Republican party has consistently led the polls. Support peaked at 36 per cent in 2022 but dropped six points in February to 28 per cent, followed by the conservative Fianna Fáil on 20 and Fine Gael on 19 per cent.

Earlier, Mr Varadkar, 45, said he was stepping down as prime minister and Fine Gael leader after the “most fulfilling” time of his life for reasons that were “both personal and political”.

“Politicians are human beings and we have our limitations. We give it everything until we can’t anymore. And then we have to move on,” he said, his voice breaking. He leads a three-way coalition of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Greens. As part of the pact, he served as deputy prime minister for the first half of the five year-term and prime minister for the second.

Mr Varadkar said he believed the government “can be re-elected,” despite Sinn Fein’s healthy lead in the polls, but a new Taoiseach would be “better placed” to do that.

He said he wanted to give Fine Gael “the best chance possible” ahead of local and European elections in June and “I think they have a better chance under a new leader.” In the last elections in 2020, Fine Gael finished behind Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail.

His predecessor Micheál Martin, the leader of Fianna Fail and deputy prime minister, said: “I was surprised. I didn’t expect it at all.” The announcement took a lot of courage, he added.

Mr Varadkar, 45, stepped down after suffering defeat in a referendum held to remove sexist language about women’s duties from the Irish Constitution.

The announcement came after the first meeting of the Cabinet held after the double referendum. Paschal Donohoe, Simon Harris and Heather Humphreys are among the ministers being considered to replace Mr Varadkar.

‘The decision of who now leads the government as Taoiseach must be placed in the hands of the people’