The rise of ‘TikTok taoiseach’: Who is Simon Harris, set to be Ireland’s youngest PM?

Simon Harris is set to become Ireland’s new prime minister on Tuesday (9 April). At 37, he will be the youngest person to lead the Republic of Ireland.

Harris is expected to be voted in by TDs (members of the Irish parliament) as Leo Varadkar’s successor as the Dail (Irish parliament) sits on Tuesday. The development comes after Varadkar’s unexpected resignation as taoiseach (Prime Minister) last month, resulting in Harris’ appointment as leader of the centre-right party Fine Gael.

Let’s take a closer look.

Simon Harris: The ‘accidental politician’

Simon Harris calls himself an “accidental politician”. He is the son of a taxi driver and a school special needs assistant. Growing up in Greystones, a County Wicklow coastal town south of Dublin, Harris attended a community school, as per The Guardian report.

He became interested in politics at the age of 15 as an “opinionated, moody teenager”, Al Jazeera reported citing Harris.

Frustrated by the lack of information and guidance for people with autism like his younger brother, Harris was propelled to lobby politicians for autism services, according to The Guardian report.

He studied French and journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), however, he dropped out of college in 2008 to make a plunge into politics. In 2009, he was elected councillor of Wicklow. “He was amazingly diligent as a county councillor. A meticulous door knocker,” Shane Ross, a former Fine Gael and independent politician, told the British newspaper.

Rise and rise of Simon Harris

Harris became the youngest member of the Irish Parliament in 2011 when he was just 24.

Three years later, he was made a junior minister. In 2016, Harris got his first Cabinet position as Minister for Health. Harris is best known for Ireland’s initial COVID-19 response.

He became the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science in 2020, a lighter post that gave him more space to go among the public, and interact in-person and through social media, reported The Hindu.

His online presence has earned him the moniker –‘TikTok Taoiseach’.

“Simon is very good craic and obsessed with politics. Always in a rush, he walks very quickly and talks very quickly. It’s all about what you can do as quickly as possible,” Ross told The Guardian.

Harris, who lives in Wicklow with his young family, also held the justice portfolio briefly. He wrote in an opinion piece on Father’s Day in 2022 that parenthood was “the most important job I have, and ever will have”, reported BBC.

Harris never hid his political ambitions, as per BBC. He was among the frontrunners to replace Varadkar after he stepped down as taoiseach on 20 March.

Harris will now lead Ireland’s three-party coalition.

Challenges before Simon Harris

Ireland has been struggling with a decade-long housing crisis. Harris has vowed to fix the housing crisis “once and for all” by constructing 250,000 homes within five years, reported Financial Times (FT).

Ireland is also facing mass immigration and a record number of asylum seekers and refugees.

Harris has said he will focus on “law and order”, creating a “more planned and sustainable” immigration policy and fighting “against the dangers of populism”, reported AFP.

On Irish unification, the 37-year-old said it was a “legitimate political aspiration” but not his priority as of now.

While the economy is booming, polls show that the centre-right Fine Gael is losing voters’ faith. According to a recent Ireland Thinks poll, Harris’ party’s support stood at 21 per cent, nearly 15 points down from its high four years back, FT reported.

Harris has asserted his party’s support for small businesses and education. He has also vowed tax reduction for middle-income earners and assistance for small businesses to tackle rising costs.

Another challenge for Harris’ party is to placate its voters who believe Fine Gael has become “too left” recently, moving far from its conservative roots.

Harris has only months to make a mark as Ireland is set to hold a general election by March 2025. His first electoral test will be on 7 June this year as local council and European polls are held. As per FT, Fine Gael is expected to lose seats in the elections.

He also has to find new leaders for the next general election as nearly a third of Fine Gael’s deputies do not plan to contest. With inputs from agencies