Sinn Féin vows to double Dáil tally

SINN Féin leaders yesterday predicted they would at least double the party’s haul of TDs to 10 at the General Election.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams used a one-day gathering in Dublin to push the party’s health and education agenda as he dismissed the fallout from Tánaiste Mary Harney’s resignation an “irrelevance”.

Mr Adams said the party was geared-up for a snap election if the Fianna Fáil-PD coalition collapsed, but would not be drawn on which party, if any, SF would back in the event of a hung Dáil.

Mr Adams insisted it was a matter of “when, not if” Sinn Féin entered Government.

“We are seeking a mandate on our own platform — a republican platform for change and reform.

“At the core of our campaign will be ending the crisis in the health service, advancing the peace process and Irish unity and building a strong economy.

“The vast majority of people are angry because the Government has completely failed to use the wealth of the economy to provide a proper health service, sufficient housing and a decent education system,” he said.

Sinn Féin leaders insisted their economic policies would not damage Ireland’s prosperity, claiming proposed increased levels of corporation tax would still be below those in many EU countries.

Mr Adams strongly denied that the party had a difficulty in establishing itself as a viable option for many mainstream voters due to issues like the language it uses to describe the murder of Detective Garda Gerry McCabe. Mr Adams said he condemned the garda’s death.

With Sinn Féin running candidates in at least 38 of the Republic’s 43 constituencies, strategists predicted they would take 10 seats in a worse-case scenario — giving them a potentially pivotal role in the next Dáil.

Sinn Féin is also to stand for the senate for the first time in the labour and agricultural panels and possible the university one as well.

The one-day meeting in Howth, Co Dublin, brought together the party’s TDs, MPs, MEPs and MLAs and centred on plans for the Republic’s looming General Election and preparations for next month’s talks on restoring a cross-community executive in the North.

Mr Adams insisted Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party would cut a deal on power sharing when it calculated it was in their best interest to do so.

He said republicans could not control that and the British and Irish Governments needed to bring the required level of pressure down on the DUP to get them to agree a deal.

Intensive talks on the North are set to be held in Scotland next month if the IRA is given another clean bill of health by the International Monitoring Commission in its next report due in three weeks’ time.