Coveney camp surprised at support shift in favour of varadkar

Simon Coveney's campaign manager has admitted they didn't expect Leo Varadkar to get the level of support he did among Fine Gael's parliamentary party.

Damien English says he thought the split would be more 50/50. Leo Varadkar is due to outline his policy priorities later, after Simon Coveney revealed his yesterday. Mr Coveney's campaign manager Damien English says they were a bit surprised at how things unfolded on the first days of the campaign.