The Taoiseach met with Vice President Pence on Friday morning for the annual St Patrick's Eve breakfast meeting.

Vice President Mike Pence refused to answer any questions about the highly-publicised media ban surrounding he and the Taoiseach's breakfast meeting scheduled for Friday morning. The annual meeting of An Taoiseach and the Vice President is traditionally recorded and reported on for the public. However, it was requested during the week that this year's meeting be held behind closed doors with no access allocated to members of the media. Sources close to Pence have recently informed media that the Vice President has opted for the majority of his recent meetings to be held in private rather than public as of late. It's understood that the topics of LGBT issues and marriage equality were up for discussion between the two men in their meeting in Washington DC this morning. Varadkar, one of the very few openly gay world leaders in power today, has said he would have preferred the meeting to be held in public. However, the Taoiseach did admit that the private meeting would allow the two minds to have a "frank conversation."