TD did not
want people to think he had a ‘hidden agenda’ on marriage equality referendum
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| Minister for Health Leo Varadkar pictured in RTE Radio 1 studios today where he came out publicly on the Miriam O’ Callaghan show. Photograph: Aidan Crawley |
Minister
for Health Leo Varadkar has come out publicly this morning, saying he is a “gay
man”.
“I am a gay
man, it’s not a secret, but not something that everyone would necessarily know
but isn’t something I’ve spoken publicly about before,” he told Miriam
O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio.
“It’s not
something that defines me,”he said. “I’m not a half-Indian politician, or a
doctor politician or a gay politician for that matter. It’s just part of who I
am, it doesn’t define me, it is part of my character I suppose”.
Across the
course of a wide-ranging interview, in which the Dublin West TD discussed his
Indian heritage, struggling with an introverted nature and an ambition to leave
politics after another 15 years, Mr Varadkar said he wanted to make clear there
were no hidden agendas on his behalf going into the same-sex marriage
referendum set for May this year.
“There’s a
referendum on marriage equality coming up too, and I just want to be honest
with people. I was thinking about the arguments that I might make, and all the
arguments that I was going to make were kind of detached” he said, speaking on
his 36th birthday.
“What I
really want to say is that I’d like the referendum to pass because I’d like to
be an equal citizen in my own country, the country in which I happen to be a
member of Government, and at the moment I’m not,” he added.
Despite the
ongoing overcrowding crisis in hospital emergency departments throughout the
country, the Minister sought to make clear that he didn’t time the announcement
to deflect publicity away from political issues affecting the Government, and
that he wanted to clarify his personal position ahead of some upcoming
decisions to be taken by the Government.
“There are
political and policy reasons too. I am now the Minister for Health, there are
decisions coming up that are not entirely my own but I will be involved in
them,” said Mr Varadkar, referring to surrogacy legislation and the debate over
blood donations from gay and bisexual men.
“What I
want people to know is that whatever decisions are made on any issue, I’ll make
them according to what I believe is in the public interest and of my own
conscience, I won’t be allowing my own background or my own sexual orientation
to dictate the decisions that I make.”
Mr Varadkar
said he also decided to come out for “personal reasons” because he was
comfortable to talk about his sexuality now but “wasn’t always”. “It’s not a
big deal for me anymore, I hope it’s not a big deal for anyone else, it
shouldn’t be,” he said.
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