Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has discussed equality and LGBT rights issues with US vice president Mike Pence during his St Patrick’s Day trip to Washington DC.
Mr Varadkar said he raised rights issues with Mr Pence, who has been criticised for his stance on the matter, when he met the Pence family at the vice president’s residence on Friday morning.
“I did privately manage to speak to them about equality and my support for equal rights for women and the LGBT community here in America and also in Ireland,” the Taoiseach said.
“They were very well briefed.
“They knew about my personal story, they knew that my partner was living in Chicago, and they said that both Matt and I would both be welcome to visit their home in future, so I thought that was a very nice gesture.”
At the meeting, the vice president invited Mr Varadkar’s partner Matt to join him for next year’s St Patrick’s Day event.
“There are so many ifs and maybes, first of all I have to survive another year in my current office and secondly, Matt is not terribly keen to attend official functions but you never know,” the Taoiseach said.
Mr Pence also confirmed he would accept Mr Varadkar’s invite to visit Ireland.
The men met behind closed doors at the vice president’s Naval Observatory residence in the US capital.
In a break with protocol, Mr Pence’s officials barred media from the traditional St Patrick’s event.
The move came after Mr Varadkar, Ireland’s first openly gay leader, stated he was going to raise the issue of LGBT rights with the socially conservative vice president.
Media were only permitted to capture the arrival of the Taoiseach.
As the politicians exchanged greetings, Mr Pence ignored questions from reporters as to why the engagement was private.
On Thursday, Mr Varadkar expressed disappointment at the media ban.
He said he would have preferred if the cameras were allowed in to document their comments, but the Taoiseach added: “It allows us maybe to have a frank conversation that’s easier to have without the media present.”
After Friday’s meeting, the Taoiseach said he had a really nice engagement with the Pence family where he met Mr Pence’s mother, who has Irish heritage.
“His mother really knows Ireland very well,” Mr Varadkar said. “Her father was born in Ireland.”
He added she was even able to tell the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme in the Irish language.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here