Justice Minister Helen McEntee has announced she will not contest the Fine Gael leadership competition after yesterday's shock news of Leo Varadkar's decision to step down. It comes as Higher Education Minister Simon Harris has already secured enough votes from the parliamentary party to seek nomination. Speaking on LMFM, Minister McEntee confirmed she will not contest the competition. She also declined to back a candidate.
She said: “I will obviously support whoever puts themselves forward and whoever is a successful candidate. “I think as a party, we will remain strong and we will remain united. “This is a decision probably made a year or two ago that if this was to come up in the near future, or the medium feature, that it's not something that I'd be putting myself forward for. “I never rule anything in the future. I've always said that I'm ambitious and that certainly hasn't changed and that won't change.” Simon Harris has shot in the lead over the last number of hours with nearly two dozen TDs, MEPs and Senators publicly stating that they will back the Higher Education Minister. A number of members of the parliamentary party privately told the Irish Mirror that they are waiting to hear Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe's intentions before they decide who to bac