Story By Dave king

A former winner of the Rotary Youth Leadership Competition has become Ireland’s youngest ever Prime Minister.

Simon Harris was confirmed as Taoiseach last month when the Irish Parliament, the Dáil, returned after the Easter break following the surprise resignation of Leo Varadkar for “personal and political reasons” in March.

A member of Fine Gael, the 37-year-old Harris who was previously Ireland’s higher education minister, won the leadership race unopposed when no other candidates came forward.

It is a dramatic rise to power for Harris. His involvement with Rotary started in 2003 as a winner of the Rotary Ireland leadership awards when he had the opportunity to visit the Dáil, Stormont and the European Parliament in Strasbourg aged 17.

Harris was selected from over 2,000 interviews and has said, many times, how this involvement with Rotary has had a great influence on his life.

Speaking to the Irish Independent in April, Rotarian Una Whelan recalled the moment 20 years ago when the future Prime Minister of Ireland walked into a room in Wicklow for an interview on his chosen subject for Rotary Ireland’s youth leadership awards.

“Simon was supremely confident, but not pushy, modest with a genuine confidence about him,” said Whelan. “He came into the room talking. He was so enthusiastic. He had researched his subject, he was extremely knowledgeable and did a brilliant interview.

“I have been involved with the competition for over 20 years and I have interviewed hundreds of students. I remember being very impressed with him. He was so articulate and was only 17 at the time.

“With a lot of the students, it was like pulling teeth. There was none of that with him. We probably knew he was going places, so it was no surprise when he went into politics.”

Harris was a student at St David’s Holy Faith secondary school in Greystones, County Wicklow when he joined 23 other young people in 2003 who took part in Euroscola Day, along with 500 other students from the European Union. This was where he got a taste for politics on the biggest of stages.

The Rotary Youth Leadership Development competition has been running for over 25 years in Ireland, giving students the experience of a lifetime, providing them a taste of what it’s like to make decisions and to lead.

Each year, the students began their trip by visiting Stormont in Belfast, the EU Office and Dáil Éireann in Dublin and finally, the EU Parliament in Strasbourg.

Harris spoke at the Rotary Great Britain & Ireland conference in Belfast in 2015 when he described his Rotary journey and the part it played in shaping his future. He has subsequently supported visits to the European Parliament in Strasbourg by Rotary Youth Leadership groups during his time in government.

At the age of 15, Harris was handing out leaflets door-to-door for a local lawmaker, and was soon himself organizing his first community meetings. At 18, Harris started work as a parliamentary aide inside Leinster House, a year later he won election to two local councils, dropping out of university to enter political life full-time.

By 24 he was representing his native county of Wicklow in Dáil Éireann, the key lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland’s two-chamber parliament, at a threshold moment for Fine Gael which had just enjoyed its biggest election victory. For his maiden speech Harris was given the honour of nominating the then-Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny as Ireland’s next Taoiseach.

Harris’s involvement in politics began after he established an autism support and lobby group in County Wicklow to seek to give a voice to people living with autism and their families and to articulate their concerns and needs.

He has worked tirelessly as a disability advocate and through this work he has first-hand meaningful understanding of issues affecting people with disabilities.

Seamus Parle, a former President of Wicklow Rotary Club, admitted his first impression of Harris was formed by his boyish appearance. “What would have crossed my mind first was that he looked so innocent. By the time we were finished, I thought he was very sharp and very switched on,” he told the Irish Independent.

“He looked like a choirboy, but by the time you’re done with him you realise he empathises with people. Every genuine person that approaches him or asks him to do something, he does his best.”

Parle summed up his opinion on the new Taoiseach in the words of the great American poet Maya Angelou: ‘People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel’.

“That applies to him, because once you’ve spoken to him you feel as if he listened to you and understood what you were saying and made a genuine attempt to address it,” he said.

“Groucho Marx said if you can fake sincerity you have it made, but Simon Harris really does seem sincere.”

The new Taoiseach has remained heavily involved with Rotary during his political career, presenting the same awards he won in his youth to the next generation alongside Parle in Wicklow.

The Irish Tatler Magazine previously named Harris as one of Ireland’s up and coming power players and as a part of a generation of politicians that has the potential to change the future of Ireland.

According to The Guardian, they described Ireland’s new Taoiseach as “a good communicator, particularly on social media”, pointing out that he has heled a number of ministerial portfolios, including health at the start of the Covid pandemic.

The website, Politico, has described Harris as “Ireland’s first TikTok prime minister”, stating: “The two clichés now most commonly applied to Harris are that he’s been ‘a young man in a hurry’ and will be Ireland’s first ‘TikTok Taoiseach’.

“Both are true — and essential to understanding why Harris so convincingly won the race to become leader of the governing Fine Gael party and, soon, Ireland’s first Millennial premier.”

In 2015, the future Prime Minister was presented with a Paul Harris award by Bray Rotary Club in County Wicklow, with the then District Governor, Philip Beggs, making the presentation.

Beggs said: “Simon has a long association with Rotary and continues to be a great supporter of the Rotary Youth Leadership competition.

“Simon is a credit to his community and his profession, and acts as an exemplar for all people, especially those young people who may be cynical about politics.”