Leo Varadkar elected Irish prime minister for second time 

Leo Varadkar was elected Irish prime minister for the second time on Saturday, taking over from Micheál Martin under a novel rotation arrangement struck between their two parties - once sworn rivals - under a 2020 coalition pact, Report informs via Reuters.

Varadkar, previously premier from 2017 to 2020, pledged to speed up government plans to tackle a years-long housing crisis that cost him a full second term in office and has made the left-wing Sinn Fein clear favorite to win the next election in 2025.

"We have many (problems), and some of them we have to fix now. Otherwise, we will be betraying the current generation and the generation that comes after us," Varadkar told parliament.

"I am thinking in particular of housing and how we have to go all-out to turn the corner on rising homelessness and falling homeownership. We need to accelerate our plan."

The 2020 coalition deal - which included the smaller Green Party - for the first time united Martin's Fianna Fail and Varadkar's Fine Gael, which are Ireland's dominant center-right parties and have led every government since independence a century ago.