Who will replace Leo Varadkar as Fine Gael party leader and Taoiseach? Here are the contenders

The main contenders in the race to succeed Leo Varadkar as Fine Gael party leader and taoiseach are expected to declare on Thursday. Here are the main challengers, noting the party’s deputy leader Simon Coveney has ruled himself out.

Simon Harris

Harris has always been open about his ambition to be Fine Gael party leader and is viewed as the frontrunner to succeed Leo Varadkar.

The 37-year-old was the youngest TD in the Dáil when first elected in 2011 and is considered one of the party’s brightest and most ambitious prospects and a rival of the Taoiseach.

The Wicklow TD and Minister for Further and Higher Education cut his political teeth campaigning on issues such as autism and was elected to Wicklow County Council in 2009 with the highest percentage vote of any councillor, conducting his campaign primarily through social media.

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He moved into the national arena through his role as parliamentary assistant to Frances Fitzgerald during her time as leader of the Seanad.

His first ministerial role was as minister of State for finance and he has served as minister for health, minister for justice while his colleague Helen McEntee was on maternity leave, and is now responsible for third-level and further education.

He is considered an excellent communicator whose popularity with younger voters emerged when he joined social media app Instagram and within 24 hours had more than 35,000 followers.

But he is less popular with the Opposition as his role when minister for health led to a motion of no-confidence in December 2019. But Varadkar pre-empted a debate by calling an election and his perceived failings as minister were forgotten when the coronavirus pandemic struck. A new coalition was negotiated and he steered the government’s health strategy until June 2020 when the new Government was formed.

He is married with two children.

Paschal Donohoe

He is the most influential member of the party among his TD and Seanad peers. Moreover, Donohoe is viewed as kingmaker though he is not seen as quite as popular as he once was among party ranks following his role as director of elections in the last general election.

He has said consistently that he harbours no ambition to be party leader. But after speculation came to nought that he might be in the running for the International Monetary Fund top job, some colleagues think he could be the man to lead the party and Government into the next election.

The 49-year-old Dublin Central TD is also popular with his European Union colleagues as chairman of the Euro group of finance ministers. Such is the regard with which he is held, he retained the role for the group while incoming Minister for Finance Michael McGrath joined the group as Ireland’s representative.

He has been in national politics since 2007 when he was elected to the Seanad and the Dáil in 2011.

Noted among journalists for charm and polite answers while revealing little, he developed a bit of an “altar boy” image, despite being a sharp, skilled and hard-nosed negotiator.

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An avid reader who writes book reviews on economics and politics, he served first as minister of State for European affairs from 2013 to 2014, then as minister for transport, tourism and sport.

He first served as minister for public expenditure and reform from 2016 to 2020, then as minister for finance, returning to the public expenditure role last year.

He suffered something of a fall from grace in 2023 when he breached electoral rules by receiving a corporate donation in 2020 for his electoral postering campaign, which exceeded legal limits.

He is a Trinity College Dublin graduate with a first-class honours degree in economics and politics who worked for Procter & Gamble and briefly Diageo before moving into the political arena. He is married with two children.

Heather Humphreys

If she puts her hat in the ring for the leadership Humphreys could prove a surprise contender. Hugely popular with her party colleagues, and especially those from rural areas, she has always had an open door and phone, not a characteristic of all senior Ministers.

The 61-year-old Cavan-Monaghan TD and Minister for Social Protection and Rural and Community Development is viewed as competent, pragmatic, practical and engaging with the confidence to represent her party and the Government on any topic.

She is from Drum in north Monaghan and lives in Newbliss. Humphreys was educated at St Aidan’s Comprehensive School in Cootehill and subsequently worked in the Ulster Bank in Cavan town and later in Ballyconnell and Swanlinbar, running the Cootehill office for 12 years.

First co-opted to Monaghan County Council in 2003 she was elected the following year and re-elected in 2009, also serving a term as mayor.

Elected to the Dáil in 2011 she was appointed to Cabinet as minister for arts, heritage and the Gaeltacht in 2014. She learned quickly after controversy over the appointment of a party member to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art just before his nomination for a Seanad byelection.

She learned from the experience and has been a calm and steady hand in her portfolios and with her colleagues. Her first significant blip in recent times was as the Government’s campaign director for the family and care referendums earlier this month, which were defeated spectacularly.

Humphreys was widely praised for her leadership of the 2016 Easter Rising centenary celebrations and the start of the decade of centenary commemorations.

In 2017 she was appointed minister for business, enterprise and innovation and following the 2020 general election was appointed to her current post, while also taking on the justice portfolio in 2021 when Helen McEntee was on maternity leave.

She is married with two adult children and is now a grandmother.

Helen McEntee

Previously spoken of as a future party leader McEntee’s rising star slipped as Minister for Justice following controversies over policing, drugs and the Dublin riots.

The justice portfolio takes its toll on officeholders and their careers. The Meath East TD has made no secret of her political ambitions but only one previous minister for justice went on to become taoiseach — Charlie Haughey.

The 37-year-old has been under pressure from her colleagues who still call Fine Gael the “party of law and order” on all these issues but particularly on falling Garda numbers. She has to take political responsibility for what happens on the streets but has limited influence over how they are policed.

She navigated an early controversy in the portfolio with a stuttering approach in the appointment of former attorney general Séamus Woulfe to the Supreme Court and his attendance at the Oireachtas Golf Society dinner during Covid.

She was the first Minister to go on maternity leave while in office and is still seen as close to the Taoiseach.

But the pressure began to ratchet up following the life-changing assault on a US tourist in Abbey Street and her subsequent public walk on the street with senior gardaí, insisting the streets of Dublin were safe.

First elected to the Dáil in 2013 in a byelection following the death in 2012 of her father minister of State Shane McEntee, whom she had worked for on departmental and constituency issues.

She is a Dublin City University graduate with a degree in economics, politics and law and subsequently worked for Citibank. McEntee then completed a master’s in journalism and media communications.

Before her appointment to the justice portfolio, she served as minister of state for European affairs from 2017 to 2020 and had ministerial responsibility for mental health and older people from 2016 to 2017.

She is married with two children.

Hildegarde Naughton

The Government Chief Whip raised eyebrows and her profile following Varadkar’s announcement that he was standing down immediately as party leader.

Naughton said “nobody within politics, I think in any party, would rule themselves out” when asked if she would run for the role has party leader.

The Galway West TD will have several high-profile senior Cabinet members to bypass for the role in a leadership election expected to be completed by mid-April.

The 46-year-old is a classically trained soprano and primary schoolteacher, first moving to national politics when she was appointed to the Seanad by then taoiseach Enda Kenny in 2013.

She was elected to the Dáil for the first time in 2016 and has served as Chief Whip and Minister of State for Health since December 2022 and a super junior since 2020.

Naughton has also served as minister of state with responsibility for transport and as a minister of state for justice.

In January a 47-year-old man appeared in court charged with making a threat to kill or cause her serious harm.

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