{"id":42152,"date":"2024-04-09T11:01:25","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T11:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=42152"},"modified":"2024-04-09T11:01:26","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T11:01:26","slug":"simon-harris-to-become-irelands-youngest-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2024\/04\/09\/simon-harris-to-become-irelands-youngest-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon Harris to become Ireland\u2019s youngest leader"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ireland\u2019s D\u00e1il is expected today to confirm\u00a0Simon Harris<\/strong>, 37, as successor to\u00a0Leo Varadkar, who stunned the country last month when he\u00a0announced his resignation\u00a0as prime minister and leader of Fine Gael.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The higher education minister blitzed potential rivals to be\u00a0coronated as the party\u2019s new leader. Fine Gael\u2019s coalition partners, Fianna F\u00e1il and the Greens, back him to become taoiseach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be the culmination of a precocious rise for a polished communicator who has rewritten the political rulebook in\u00a0Ireland\u00a0but is barely known in Belfast, London or Brussels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new taoiseach will face daunting challenges. A\u00a0housing crisis\u00a0and fraying public services dim the centre-right coalition\u2019s hopes of winning an election due by next March. Farmers are chafing at environmental rules while climate activists lament missed targets. Post-Brexit relations with London are\u00a0tetchyand\u00a0Northern <\/a>Ireland\u2019s government is fragile. About a third of Fine Gael\u2019s D\u00e1il deputies are stepping down rather than face voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Harris has reputedly yearned for this opportunity since he was a teenager. \u201cHe\u2019s acutely and almost obsessionally ambitious,\u201d said Shane Ross, a former Fine Gael and independent politician who served in cabinet with Harris and knew him as a newly elected legislator in 2011. \u201cHe was always in a hurry, even at that time. Very early on he declared his leadership ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Simon
Simon Harris attends a meeting of the North South Ministerial Council (NSMC) at the NSMC headquarters in Armagh. Photograph: Oliver McVeigh\/PA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s D\u00e1il is expected today to confirm\u00a0Simon Harris, 37, as successor to\u00a0Leo Varadkar, who stunned the country last month when he\u00a0announced his resignation\u00a0as prime minister and leader of Fine Gael. The higher education minister blitzed potential rivals to be\u00a0coronated as the party\u2019s new leader. Fine Gael\u2019s coalition partners, Fianna F\u00e1il and the Greens, back him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":42153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,12],"tags":[8731,75,1904,3782,8440,423,5103,911,1195,12565,2264,11491,11715,6449,9974,1416,3684,9833,7964,2695,3174,11083,6988,5149,594],"class_list":["post-42152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world-news","tag-belfast","tag-brexit","tag-brussels","tag-cabinet","tag-crisis","tag-education","tag-education-minister","tag-election","tag-european-union","tag-farmers","tag-government","tag-harris","tag-housing","tag-ireland","tag-leadership","tag-leo-varadkar","tag-london","tag-meeting","tag-north","tag-northern-ireland","tag-prime-minister","tag-simon-harris","tag-successor","tag-taoiseach","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42154,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42152\/revisions\/42154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}