Gerry Adams ‘younger than Pope’ so he won’t step down, jokes McGuinness

Sinn Féin has laughed off suggestions its long-standing leader Gerry Adams could soon step aside and that his ongoing predominance is preventing the party from reaching out to new voters who have been turned off by republican violence in the past.

The North’s deputy first minister Martin McGuinness joked that his colleague is “younger than the Pope” and laughed off claims that Mr Adams is holding the party back, when asked yesterday about the prospect of a future leadership change.

Speaking beside the Sinn Féin leader at the party’s annual pre-Dáil think-in in Co Meath, Mr McGuinness repeatedly said the party is doing all it can to progress the peace process in the North and accused rival parties on both sides of the border of failing to do enough to push relationships forward.