Irish PM Leo Varadkar to attend Belfast gay pride event as push for same-sex marriage continues

Taoiseach vows to not "make any compromises" about legalising same-sex marriage

Leo Varadkar attended the Dublin LGBTQ Pride Festival in June (PA)

Ireland’s new taoiseach or prime minister is to attend an event at the gay pride festival in Belfast this weekend, as people in the North continue to fight for the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

Leo Varadkar, the , will attend a Pride breakfast while visiting Northern Ireland for the first time since he took power in June.

Mr Varadkar is Ireland’s first openly gay leader and has vowed to use his position to campaign for legal support for the LGBT community in Northern Ireland.

Same-sex marriage is legal in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, but remains prohibited in the North.

He hinted that he would confront members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) about their opposition to same-sex marriage over the weekend, telling the Irish Times: “I won’t be making any compromises about that for anyone really”.

Mr Varadkar confirmed he was unable to attend and speak at the Belfast march itself as he was due to watch an All-Ireland football championship match at Croke Park in the afternoon.

When he visited Downing Street the taoiseach said it was a matter of “when, not if” Northern Ireland would introduce equal marriage rights.

Members of the DUP, the ruling party, which is staunchly against same-sex marriage, were quick to warn Mr Varadkar against involving himself in Northern Irish politics too keenly.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, one of the party's MPs: “It’s his own business. So long as he doesn’t interfere in the internal affairs of Northern Ireland who he meets is a matter for him.”

A former DUP minister, Nelson McCausland, said unionists “will find it odd” if Mr Varadkar starts proposing policy changes for the North.

“He has responsibilities south of the border, and they will find it odd if he starts to interfere, as in some ways he already has done, in what is a social issue in Northern Ireland around the redefinition of marriage,” he said.

At the start of July, thousands of people took part in a protest march and rally in Belfast, calling for the legalisation of same-sex marriage.

The issue is one of the major stumbling blocks in the ongoing crisis at Stormont.