Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like many others I got up this morning not expecting the Taoiseach to announce his resignation. However, he did and I think it was a courageous thing to do. Many people leave politics because they are ordered out and the electorate does not support them. To realise that he has given his best and it is time to move on to do other things when he could have realistically remained as Taoiseach for another year is brave, and it is something we all need to admire and take some leadership from. His record since he entered Cabinet in 2011 is quite remarkable because it has been a turbulent 12 or 13 years. We were broke as a country when he went into Cabinet with the former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and others. Within three or four years sovereignty was restored. We then had Brexit, which took careful diplomatic engagement, negotiations and discussions. We had not even dealt with Brexit when the pandemic happened. I think the Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar's leadership in the pandemic and his state of the nation address on St. Patrick's Day will define his premiership because his determination at that stage was to save lives. In my view many thousands of lives were saved because of the leadership of that Government and of the Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, and the co-operation of the Irish people. In more recent times we had the inflation crisis, which was navigated. We are now hopefully looking at that coming to an end, or at least easing off. At 45 years of age, he has had a remarkable career, and I wish him well because he has made it clear he will continue to represent Ireland in whatever capacity and to do his best for Ireland. I think that is all we can expect of anyone.