Yesterday, Leo Varadkar announced his plan to take part in a charity car wash this Wednesday alongside French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron and the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The aim of the car wash is raise funds for the three young leaders to go on the World Leader’s Society’s freshers trip to Magaluf.

“We were generating ideas on how to raise money in our group chat this week”, Varadkar told the Turbine in a rare interview. “Emmanuel wanted to host an Iron Stomach [competition], I felt that bag packing was the way to go, but then Justin suggested the car wash. Clearly the best choice. We need to raise about €3,000 to cover the cost of flights, hostel accommodation and jägerbombs, and we all eventually agreed that the only way we could realistically do that would be by washing cars. We just really want to go on this trip”.

The three leaders will be washing cars in their respective capitals over the coming weeks. On Wednesday they will be outside Leinster House, the following week they will be under the Eiffel Tower, and the week after that they will be outside the Canadian Houses of Parliament. Each wash will be priced at €15, and photos with the budding young bureaucrats will be an extra €10. Good luck to them.


Philip Mignon – Turbine Writer