{"id":411309,"date":"2026-04-22T06:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T06:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411309\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T06:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T06:36:10","slug":"leo-varadkar-doubles-down-on-rural-ireland-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/411309\/","title":{"rendered":"Leo Varadkar doubles down on rural Ireland comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leo Varadkar has doubled down on his recent comments about rural Ireland being subsidised by the \u2018bill-paying\u2019 urban dwellers.<\/p>\n

The former Taoiseach received backlash over his remarks<\/a>, which he has stated that he did not want to cause division with.<\/p>\n

Last week, Varadkar<\/a> said: \u2018People in rural Ireland are very quick to tell people in urban Ireland that \u201cwe are the real workers, we\u2019re the ones paying the bills, we\u2019re the ones feeding the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"08\/04\/2024Leo Varadkar has doubled down on his recent comments about rural Ireland. Pic: Sasko Lazarov\/\u00a9 RollingNews.ie<\/p>\n

\u2018I think we maybe need to be a little bit more blunt in urban Ireland and say, actually, that is not the case.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re the ones paying all the bills \u2013 you\u2019re the ones in receipt of a lot of subsidies and a lot of tax benefits that other people don\u2019t get.\u2019<\/p>\n

His claim was labelled \u2018shameful\u2019 by Galway West candidate Noel Thomas, while he also came under fire on social media.<\/p>\n

\"01\/04\/2022His claim was labelled \u2018shameful\u2019 by Galway West candidate Noel Thomas. Pic: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Thomas said: \u2018As far as I am concerned, most people in rural Ireland work hard each day and contribute enormously to the tax take.<\/p>\n

\u2018And 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

\u2018Rural 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.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"LeoLeo Varadkar insisted that his remarks were not intended to cause offence. Pic: Leah Farrell\/RollingNews.ie<\/p>\n

Thomas went on to claim that\u00a0Varadkar\u00a0was \u2018trying to push the agenda to get all rural dwellers into the towns and villages and cities\u2019.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Varadkar<\/a> was asked by the Irish Independent if he stood by the comments while at an event organised by the Institute of European and International Affairs.<\/p>\n

Varadkar replied by claiming that he had simply been stating a fact.<\/p>\n

He told the paper: \u2018There\u2019s no real question, in Ireland, like most countries, it is the urban economy that generates most of the tax.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ireland imports 80% of our food.\u2019<\/p>\n

However, he insisted that his remarks were not intended to cause offence and he believes that Irish residents need to \u2018pull together\u2019 as a country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leo Varadkar has doubled down on his recent comments about rural Ireland being subsidised by the \u2018bill-paying\u2019 urban…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-411309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411309","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=411309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}