SF rules out beefed up role for TDs in party’s leadership structure

THERE will not be a greater role for Sinn Féin’s low-key Dáil deputies in its leadership structure despite an ambition to win at least seven seats in the next general election.

Party president Gerry Adams, Northern assemblyman Martin McGuinness and its vice president Mary Lou McDonald said the current system – dominated by politicians without an electoral mandate in the south – would remain.

And its Dáil leader Caoimhghín O Caoláin said there was no division between the politicians elected to the Oireachtas and the rest of the organisation.