Varadkar comes clean on relationships, cannabis and head shops

FINE GAEL’s Leo Varadkar has revealed he has never been in a serious relationship, has admitted smoking cannabis at college, and believes head shops should be regulated and not banned.

In a Hot Press interview published today, Mr Varadkar said although he has been “extremely law-abiding” since elected, he smoked cannabis at college.

Regarding head shops, Mr Varadkar said it seemed as though they would always be one step ahead of law, and it might make more sense to try to regulate them. Drug dealers were clearly threatened by the shops. “I think it’s kind of curious the extent to which the attacks on the head shops are being carried out by drug dealers. It shows the extent to which the main opponents of any form of legalisation or regularisation of drugs are those who are making a fortune out of selling unsafe, dangerous, drugs that are not properly monitored in any way.”

Of his personal life, Mr Varadkar said he has never been in a long-term relationship. “I’ve had short-term ones, but not long-term. I’ve never lived with anyone. One of the big problems in Dáil Éireann is the lack of women. I’m totally, absolutely, single. But I’m going to need to do something about that now. I’m getting old – I’m 31.”

The Dublin West TD also revealed he finds absence of privacy in politics difficult.

“I miss being able to have a drink in my local pub, which I can’t do anymore, or being able to go to the shops without every second person staring at me and looking at my basket to see what I’m buying,” he said.

“I find that really, really, hard, but then you have to remind yourself that you put stupid pictures of your face up on the poles, and knocked on their doors uninvited, and you kind of asked for it.”

Back to serious business, he said former financial regulator Patrick Neary was appointed as a “soft touch”.

“Neary did a lousy job for five years, got paid a fortune, and then got a golden handshake, and now gets a massive pension. I think there should be a law that would allow the Oireachtas to take pensions away from people. That would go for corrupt politicians, it would go for public servants who failed miserably, or were incompetent... it would have been known around here that people didn’t think that he was really up to the job, that he was almost appointed deliberately not to be up to the job,” he said.