![\"Taoiseach](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_LEO-VARADKAR-020.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Fine Gael leader said recently: “People in rural Ireland are very quick to tell people in urban Ireland that \u2018we are the real workers, we\u2019re the ones paying the bills, we\u2019re the ones feeding the country.\u2019”<\/p>\n
Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. (Image: Collins)<\/p>\n
Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar<\/a> has been blasted over comments he made about farmer subsidies.<\/p>\n The Fine Gael<\/a> leader said recently: “People in rural Ireland are very quick to tell people in urban Ireland that \u2018we are the real workers, we\u2019re the ones paying the bills, we\u2019re the ones feeding the country.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But he added: \u201cI think we maybe need to be a little bit more blunt in urban Ireland and say, actually that is not the case.<\/p>\n “We\u2019re the ones paying all the bills \u2014 you\u2019re the ones in receipt of a lot of subsidies and a lot of tax benefits that other people don\u2019t get.\u201d<\/p>\n The former Taoiseach made the comments while appearing on Matt Cooper\u2019s Path to Power podcast<\/p>\n But Noel Thomas, who is running in the Galway West by-election, blasted the remarks and dubbed them “shameful”.<\/p>\n Speaking to the Sunday Independent, the Ireland Independent candidate said: “As far as I am concerned, most people in rural Ireland work hard each day and contribute enormously to the tax take.<\/p>\n “And they get none of the services that the urban dwellers have like water mains, sewerage, paths, lighting and get a lot less playgrounds and other amenities.<\/p>\n \u201cRural dwellers do not begrudge the urban dwellers for having these extra services, as it\u2019s obviously population driven. But it is shameful for Leo to be coming out with statements like this.\u201d<\/p>\n He further went on to say that ex-Taoiseach was \u201ctrying to push the agenda to get all rural dwellers into the towns and villages and cities\u201d.<\/p>\n Want to see more of the stories you love from the Irish Mirror? Making us your preferred source on Google<\/a> means you\u2019ll get more of our exclusives, top stories and must-read content straight away. To add Irish Mirror as a preferred source, simply click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Fine Gael leader said recently: “People in rural Ireland are very quick to tell people in urban…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3775,61,60,3581,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-407746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-fine-gael","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-leo-varadkar","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Then-Taoiseach](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_GettyImages-2141941992.jpg\")
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