Varadkar must face a reckoning

■ Many positive things have been written and spoken about Leo Varadkar confronting Pope Francis in Dublin Castle with the Vatican’s failure to protect children from perverted priests and women from religious institutions.

But it would be churlish and politically blinkered to not recognise the hypocrisy in Mr Varadkar’s statements when one considers the abuse being inflicted on contemporary Irish children who sleep in tents and go hungry just so the Taoiseach can stay friends with the right people.

He and his party have turned their obliging eyes away from banks who have broken contract law to the detriment of struggling families, all in the name of market forces and moral hazard.

Mr Varadkar’s day will come when it is he and his ilk who stand in Dublin Castle at the end of a pointed question. Darren Williams

Dublin 18