Boyd Barrett yet to hear from Sinn Féin on forming left-wing coalition

People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett says he has not yet heard back from Sinn Féin on forming a left-wing coalition government.

Mr Boyd Barrett has written to Mary Lou McDonald urging her to form a left-wing government with independents, Labour, the Social Democrats and the Green Party. Mr Boyd Barrett says, however, that the plan is workable, even if the group falls short of the 80 TDs required for a majority.

The parties had worked on a programme for government before the Covid-19 emergency had broken out, but the decision by the Greens to enter talks with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael on government formation has seen an increased urgency from the left to call for an alternative.

"We had worked on and developed to quite an advanced stage, a genuine radical alternative programme with Sinn Féin and some left independents.

"And we think that a left minority government that put forward those policies that really made a difference to working people, that gave us the investments in our public services that took radical action on climate change, would be very difficult for Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil to oppose and would come with huge support from the majority of people out there who clearly expressed a desire for change in the election in February.

So it will be up to them - do they want to oppose progress? But we think the programme that we put together, would be one that would command majority public support, even more so in the aftermath of the public health emergency.

Mr Boyd Barrett made a call to the Greens to leave talks with the Civil War parties and form a government of the left.

"If there's any lessons to be taken from this seismic event, it's surely that we need a radically different approach to the future, which gives us public services that can protect us from an emergency situation like this and a society built on equality and fairness.

"We do not think that that is going to come from a Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael dominated government and we would urge the Greens to reconsider that and to to look to the left and to try and to form some sort of left minority government as a genuine alternative to 100 years of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil rule."