LEO Varadkar has beaten housing minister Simon Coveney in the Fine Gael leadership contest.
At 38, Varadkar is now in line to become the youngest person to hold the office of Taoiseach in Ireland.
The youngest child of an Indian father and Irish mother, he would also become Ireland’s first openly gay prime minister in the process.
Mr Varadkar takes on the leadership of Fine Gael after current Taoiseach Enda Kenny stepped down last month.
Ireland's new Taoiseach will be formally announced when the Dáil reconvenes on June 13.
Mr Varadkar, who has served as the Minister for Social Protection since May 2016, previously served as Minister for Health and Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport.
Outgoing Taoiseach Enda Kenny has expressed his best wishes to Varadkar, who joined the party as a teenager in secondary school.
Ireland’s new leader certainly has an interesting background – here’s everything you need to know…
His parents met in England
Varadkar was born and raised in Dublin to mother, Miriam, a nurse originally from Waterford in Ireland and father, Ashok, a doctor from Mumbai, India.
But Varadkar’s parents actually met during the 1960s in England, where his father worked as a doctor with his mother, who worked as a nurse.
He is a qualified doctor
Varadkar was educated at the St Francis Xavier National School, Blanchardstown. His secondary-level education took place in Palmerstown at The King’s Hospital – a fee-paying school operated under the ethos of the Church of Ireland.
He later studied Medicine at Trinity College, where he graduated in 2003.
He worked as a junior doctor in St James’ Hospital for several years and qualified as a GP in 2010.
He has been in politics since he was 20
Varadkar joined Fine Gael in secondary school and contested the 1999 local elections in the Mulhuddart area aged just 20.
He failed to be elected but later returned in 2004 to contest the Castleknock area as a replacement for Sheila Terry – receiving the highest first-preference vote in the country with 4,894 votes and was elected on the first count.
He is openly gay
Varadkar came out as gay in 2015 during the build up to Ireland’s same-sex marriage referendum.
"It is not something that defines me. I am not a half- Indian politician, or a doctor politician or a gay politician for that matter.
"It is just part of who I am,” he said at the time.
He is pro-choice
The popular minister has campaigned on same-sex marriage and liberalising abortion laws since he first won a seat in the Dáil in 2007.
His partner is also a doctor
Varadkar’s partner, Matthew Barrett, is a doctor at Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin.
The couple have been together since 2015.
See More: Featured, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar, Taoiseach
