‘Lots of money for consultants but little for disabled children’ says Adams

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has said his party is now a major political party in both states on the island of Ireland, where the political landscape has changed forever.

In his keynote address to more than 1,000 delegates at the party’s ard fheis in Co Wexford, Mr Adams said Sinn Féin was now the only real and credible opposition in Leinster House, where “two and a half party rule” was coming to an end.

During the televised speech, he repeatedly criticised the broken promises of the Coalition, claiming that Ireland had become increasingly polarised between the “haves” and the “have nots” who were ruled by an increasingly arrogant Government.

He said that the Government had delivered cuts to living standards and vital public services, an unsustainable banking debt, cuts in support for people with disabilities, a crumbling health service, a property tax, and a water charge that went straight into the pockets of consultants.

“Lots of money for consultants, investors, bankers, and politicians but little for disabled children,” he told a packed Wexford Opera House.

To huge applause, he told delegates that Fianna Fáil’s days as the main opposition party were numbered because, no matter how well they regroup, “Fianna Fáil will never, ever again be the dominant force they once were”.

Looking to the 2016 general election and the possibility of Sinn Féin entering a coalition government, he said it was time to unite the left of Irish politics who had a progressive, rights-based vision. They should devise “viable alternative policies” and challenge the establishment, he said.

“If we are serious about changing this country, the left needs to come together around viable alternative policies and take on the conservative establishment, who brought the economy to its knees and created the toxic culture that we are trying to break free from,” he said.

He said Sinn Féin was now a major force on both sides of the island and would be running more than 350 candidates in the local and European elections.

He pledged the party would not make election promises it could not keep and Sinn Féin would keep every commitment it would make.

This toxic political culture, the Louth TD said, emerged from the counter-revolution that arose from the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence.

He said this culture led to the abuses of power in planning, in the banks, in Church and State-run institutions, and in the health service.

“An elite — politically represented by the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil leaderships, often supported by the Labour Party — oversaw a culture of corruption and golden circles,” he said. “These are the same interests that collapsed the Irish economy six years ago.”

His half-hour address was largely focused on southern politics and he promised Sinn Féin would publish proposals for local government reform and the party would ease the tax burden on working people by removing the property tax.

He said progress had been made in the talks in the North chaired by Richard Haass in December but issues such as the Irish Language Act, a Bill of Rights, a Long Kesh site, and contentious Orange parades would have to be resolved.