Harris’s family-first ideal is to be admired, but is he really ready for the juggle?

Obama relished living ‘above the shop’, but other world leaders have found balancing act a challenge

It was probably a Dáil first: a taoiseach making his inaugural speech in front of both his grandmother and young children. While Simon Harris’s granny Ann Cahill got a huge cheer from the assembled crowd at the new Taoiseach’s big moment this week, his speech was also interrupted by his daughter Saoirse and son Cillian, who clapped and called for “Daddy”.

April 9 was a big day for the Harris family as he made his first address as Taoiseach in Leinster House after travelling to meet President Michael D Higgins to receive the seals of office.

Mr Harris becomes the youngest ever taoiseach at 37 after taking over that role and the leadership of Fine Gael from recently resigned Leo Varadkar.

He was elected after a vote in which 88 Dáil members supported him while 69 voted against his appointment.

“My biggest thank you goes to my wife Caoimhe, who is my rock and an incredible mother to our two beautiful children,” Mr Harris said.

“And lastly to my children Saoirse and Cillian, who mean the absolute world to me. I promise being your dad will remain my most important job.”

So far, so heartwarming, but let’s freezeframe here and ask a pertinent question, because running a country, especially one in which there’s considerable room for improvement, is a major endeavour for any taoiseach.

But is the 24/7 task of managing Ireland – and, in this case, turning the fortunes of Fine Gael around within a year – even possible alongside the considerable job of being a handson dad?

Mr Harris’s familyfirst determination is reminiscent of something David Cameron told a British newspaper in 2008, two years before becoming the UK prime minister.

“If who you are at the core is a husband and family man, you can’t allow your work to morph you into something different: a decisionmaking machine,” he said in an interview with the Daily Mail.

Asked what might take priority were he ever to become prime minister, he said: “Your responsibility as a father has always got to come first. Bringing children into the world is the most important thing you can do. I believe profoundly that you can be a good father and prime minister. I intend to prove that.”

It’s a charming stance, certainly, and one that builds the image of an upstanding family man – and appeals to traditional voters.

Who wouldn’t be charmed by images of biscuit crumbs on the seats of the government limousine or toddler games and toys stowed in the government jet?

Mr Harris has made no secret of how much he enjoys the handson role of fatherhood.

His children arrived at significant points in the Government’s history: his wife was pregnant with Saoirse (now five) during the Repeal the Eighth Amendment campaign when Mr Harris was health minister.

Cillian was born in 2021 during the pandemic, at a time when maternity restrictions were in place (he did get to attend the 20week scan).

When he was in charge at the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (20202024), Mr Harris spoke of his experiences of parenting to the Irish Times on February 1, 2022, saying: “The demands of my job are significant, but so are the demands of lots of people’s jobs.

“I’m in the lucky position as a TD from Wicklow that I live near the Dáil, so I can go home every night. It might be very late at night, but I can go home at night. I’m there every day.

“When Caoimhe’s not on maternity leave, I’d be the person to get my daughter up and out in the morning. I try to take time on Sundays, as much as I can, just to have family time too.”

Mr Harris has also spoken out in the past about how the Fingal Battalion antiausterity group gathered outside his house to protest when Saoirse was just three weeks old, something he described at the time as “a very frightening experience”.

Even without the protesters, the rigours and vagaries of political office are notoriously hard on family life.

Kerry TD Brendan Griffin announced his decision to leave politics in January last year, citing family reasons.

“It’s unnatural to be away from your family so much. When I’m up in Dublin

during the week, I was wondering what I’m doing here. When I thought about having a wife and children, this is not what I envisaged,” he told The Kerryman at the time. “A Dáil term is five years, and that’s a long time in a child’s life.”

Being a minister is certainly a demanding job, but what about the ultimate, “buck stops with you” gig as leader of the country, especially in times of major global volatility?

Other leaders have juggled the role of fatherhood and running a country with varying degrees of challenge (for the sake of simplicity, I’m sticking here with fathers – former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and former Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin’s balancing of motherhood and political life is a discussion of a whole other stripe).

Former taoiseach Micheál Martin went on The Late Late Show in May 2020 and admitted he had gone months without seeing his family due to Covid lockdowns.

“I haven’t seen the family in weeks now – about six or seven weeks,” he said. “We’re on the phone. We’re doing the Zoom. I’m on the phone more often. Our children have tolerated my many absences over the years.”

Before him, former taoiseach Bernie Ahern made similar references to absenteeism in a Sunday Times interview last year.

“Working 80 hours a week meant my time at home in Dublin was very limited,” he said, speaking of the years when his daughters were young children and he was government chief whip.

“I made a point of being with Cecelia and her older sister, Georgina, on a Sunday, but that was just one day in the week.

“Looking back, I wish I’d been able to be more involved.”

You would also have to wonder whether former French president Nicolas Sarkozy regrets missing the birth of his daughter, Giulia, in 2011. According to reports, he not only missed that, but he then spent only half-an-hour with his wife, Carla Bruni, and the baby in a Paris clinic before returning to Frankfurt to meet Angela Merkel for pressing talks about the euro.

That the president missed such a key event divided opinion in France at the time, which goes some way to explain the family-first stance of other world leaders in his wake.

Farther afield, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has been vocal about making family life a priority for his children Xavier (16), Ella-Grace (15) and Hadrien (10).

“We treasure our moments with our children most of all, and always look forward to dedicating our Sundays to enjoying family time whenever we can ,” he told the online magazine Dad.CEO.

“I think it’s all about taking a step back and remembering why I got into politics in the first place – to build a better future for Canadian families.”

Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, enjoyed life as “dad-in-chief” as he moved his two young daughters, Sasha and Malia, then 10 and seven, into the White House. And yet the juggle was real. At the height of his political career, he attended parent-teacher meetings and helped to coach Sasha’s basketball team. Family dinners at 6.30pm were “inviolable”.

“People often ask me whether being president has made it more difficult to spend time with Michelle and the girls,” Mr Obama is quoted as saying. “But the surprising truth is that being in the White House has made our family life more ‘normal’ than it’s ever been. It’s pretty good to live above the store.”

Perhaps the key to being a great country leader and a great father is to take a leaf out of Mr Cameron’s book and build a strong team that can, at least partly, carry the load – the workplace equivalent of “rocks” such as Michelle Obama or Sophie Trudeau (she and husband Justin separated last year).

“I would be a different sort of prime minister,” Mr Cameron told the Daily Mail in 2004. “I’m a great believer in appointing good people to the cabinet and trusting them to get on with the job.”

Will Simon Harris be every bit as good at delegating in order to make family dinner every night?

For the moment, that remains to be seen.

“I promise being your dad will remain my most important job”