SOME years ago, Mary Lou McDonald was asked what single word came to mind when she thought of the Fine Gael leader, Leo Varadkar. Mary Lou paused for a second and then said “Smarmy.”
At the time it seemed a reasonable summation of the man who looked more like the Dublin 4 doctor he was than a politician. All smarminess fell away last week, when he visited Belfast, where he was to give a talk.
It took place in St Mary’s University College but when I arrived I was told there was no room in the hall and was directed to a lower room in which there was a whiteboard. Eventually the whiteboard showed the interview between the former Fine Gael leader and Reverend Karen Sethuraman. Hopeless. The camera was placed so we got a fine picture of the back of Rev Karen’s head, with Leo V a remote presence on the other side of a low table. As to sound, you could hear every tenth word but that was about it.
Fortunately, the BBC did an interview with Varadkar, with decent sound and vision. It was one of the most significant interviews I’ve heard Mark Carruthers conduct.
Varadkar quickly made it clear that the reuniting of Ireland matters and he for one would put his shoulder to the wheel to see that it happened.
Startlingly, he suggests two border polls, not one. The first, he hopes, will answer the Yes/No of a united Ireland. If it yields a Yes, the second could present people with a thought-through, detailed map of what the proposed united Ireland might look like.
As to the cost, Varadkar compared it to the reunification of Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall. In the short term national unity cost the German people, but that didn’t stop them doing it. Might reunification of Ireland make similar demands on the Irish people? Not necessarily, but even if it did: “Would I be willing to forgo two years of economic growth for the unification of my island? I would.”
Reunification is the great project of our time, and he wants to do his bit.
Well. Straight talk and then some. Carruthers asked Professor Pete Shirlow and then Chris Donnelly what they thought of Varadkar’s thinking.
DEBATE: Professor Pete Shirlow expressed irritation with Leo Varadkar's words on The View
“I thought he was all over the place,” Prof Pete said, looking like a man who’d swallowed a wasp. The nationalist/republican vote hadn’t gone up since 1998, he kept gasping. Chris Donnelly agreed that the republican/nationalist population hadn’t increased, but the number of unionists had markedly declined.
Donnelly also pointed to a key matter: Leo’s emergence as a major UI figure took the weight off Sinn Féin, who for many were the only party working for a UI. Leo’s position showed concern and commitment beyond party lines.
Here was a former Fine Gael leader, a former Tanaiste, a former Taoiseach, a medical doctor who is the son of immigants. Here also was an agreeable, smiling man who stated his case for a UI in a quiet, clear way that clearly frightens the life out of some unionists.
He did dismiss the notion of a border poll in 2030 – too soon, he felt. I think he’s wrong on that one. But that aside, he drew a clear picture of some steps which proponents of unity needed to take. Oh, and he knocked firmly on the head the idea that reconciliation must precede a border poll. When have you heard a Fine Gael or Fianna Fail politician say that?
Varadkar’s words will have real resonance for politicians and those who care about an 800-year-old aspiration. One short interview with one man, one potentially huge leap for the UI movement.
No wonder Professor Pete harrumphed and made faces.
