By Niall Hunter

Public opinion is divided 50-50 on whether Health Minister Leo Varadkar is doing a good job, according to our latest viewers' poll.

Leo Varadkar took over from James Reilly as Health Minister last July. While to date, he has not undertaken major initiatives and the same age-old health service access and capacity problems have continued, he has had a positive media and public profile.

We asked viewers how they would rate the performance of Mr Varadkar as Minister, just over six months into the job.

While 50% felt his performance has been poor, 50% felt his performance has been either very good (18%), good (18%) or fair (14%).

However, Leo Varadkar's prececessor James Reilly, only started to garner a negative public profile around 18 months into his term as Minister.

Our poll ratings for James Reilly were fairly similar in March 2012, after he had been Health Minister for a year.

Then, 54% of viewers polled felt he was doing a poor job as Minister, although 46% rated his performance then from fair to very good, although he had a lower 'very good' rating than Leo Varadkar currently enjoys.

From the latter half of 2012 onwards Dr Reilly's popularity fell further as he presided over a number of crises and policy controversies.

View the latest poll results and results of previous polls here