Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the radical Right’s lightning rod for perceived problems in liberal Ireland, was in an unusual position last Friday in Galway – he was praised to the hilt!

Gay and of half-Indian descent, the former Dublin West TD is accustomed to toxicity and hate online. Effusive compliments? Not so much.

But Susan Gray, who founded road safety group PARC, after her husband died in a road accident in 2004, bombarded him with praise at an event in Galway Bay Hotel.

She even made a presentation to the former Transport Minister on behalf of victims’ families, and credited Varadkar for saving lives on roads.

Among his achievements, she said, were mandatory intoxicant testing at fatal crash scenes, penalty points for unaccompanied learner drivers and stricter penalties on drunk drivers.

It was Varadkar’s first press conference in a year, called by Parc to welcome another law he progressed that means disqualified drivers can’t get insurance.

He agreed he was “not particularly” used to such praise. “It’s nice to get recognition every now and then, but I don’t need it or demand it.”

So, what’s he been up to, since his shock decision to stepdown as Taoiseach last April?

On Instagram, he described the last 12 months as a ‘gap year’, but insisted last week, “it’s not a yearlong yoga retreat or anything”, and that he had a “few different things lined up”.

Among them was filming an episode for a travel-related RTÉ television programme which will likely air in September.

A recent social media post of him drinking bottled beer with Zulus in South Africa hinted it might differ from a travel programme his predecessor Enda Kenny fronted, about Irish railways, for RTÉ after he left office.

“It’s a bit like that but not like it at all,” he said.

After Easter, Leo starts a new post in Harvard University, teaching “leadership, Irish studies, politics, and some things around human rights and equality, and access to healthcare”.

He also soon starts a new position with Penta, an American public relations firm, where he will dispense “strategic advice . . . on how to manage all the interesting things that are now happening in the World”.

Now out of the loop, he was not following the Dáil speaking rights row closely.

“I was at a concert last night and one of my friends asked what I thought of it all and it became very apparent to me that he was more informed about what happened than I was.

“I think there is always a risk in a small country like Ireland that we forget that we are just a small ship on a big ocean. The focus of our politicians needs to be what’s happening in the World and less on who gets eight minutes of speaking time on a Tuesday or Thursday – but that’s not my fight anymore,” he said.

Pictured: You wouldn’t think it, what with the carry on in the Dáil lately – no committees formed as the row over speaking rights rumbled on – but we cast our votes in the General Election 126 days ago. And yet this ‘Moving Forward’ poster of Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, who is now Taoiseach, was spotted by a reader at Crown Square in Mervue earlier this week. Is this a record?