Eamon Quinn: Varadkar had enormous tax resources to fight three economic crises since 2017

 Separate storms of Brexit, covid, and cost-of-living crisis

A deserted Grafton Street in Dublin, during Ireland's first coronavirus lockdown. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Leo Varadkar, since securing the leadership of the governing Fine Gael party and his appointment as taoiseach, would at first sight appear to have been among the unluckiest leaders in Western Europe.

Since 2017, Mr Varadkar has battled the prospects of the hardest of hard Brexits that Tory extremists in Britain and a large slice of political unionism in the North had designed to nobble the economy across the island.