Tánaiste dismisses Sinn Féin claim that poll on Irish unity could take place within five years

Leo Varadkar congratulated Sinn Féin on its performance but said he did not buy into its president Mary Lou McDonald's claims that its historic election results bring a border poll closer.

Leo Varadkar with Sinn Féin party leader Mary Lou McDonald during a debate in 2020. File picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

The Tánaiste has dismissed Sinn Féin suggestions that a referendum on Irish unity could take place within five years.

Leo Varadkar congratulated the party on its performance in the Northern Ireland election but said he did not buy into its president Mary Lou McDonald's claims that its historic results bring a border poll closer.

Her comments came after the party recorded its best-ever result in a Northern Ireland Assembly election.

As of Saturday evening, with 88 of 90 Assembly seats filled, Sinn Féin had 29 seats, the DUP 24, the Alliance Party 17, the Ulster Unionists nine, the SDLP seven, and three seats going to others.

Sinn Féin secured the largest vote share with 250,388 first preferences, 29% of all first preference votes, compared with 184,002 for the DUP (21.3%) and 116,681 for the Alliance Party (11.2%).

Speaking to reporters at the Fine Gael special conference on agriculture and rural development in Tullamore on Saturday evening, Mr Varadkar said it is absolutely the case that Sinn Féin is now the largest party.

But he said it’s important to take time to analyse the result and understand what the electorate has said.

He said the percentage of people who voted for one of three Nationalist parties has dropped below 40%, while the number of people who voted for one of three Unionist parties has also dropped - to just above 40%.

“The reason they are the largest party is because the Unionist vote has split," he said.

“If you look at the Nationalist vote, the number of people who vote for parties that want a united Ireland, that want a border poll, that vote has actually gone down - it’s gone down below 40%.

“The Unionist vote is down as well and there is a growing middle ground represented mainly by the Alliance Party.

So if there was a vote in the Assembly in a few weeks time as to whether there should be a border poll, it would be defeated.

“That means the test in the Good Friday Agreement for having a border poll is not met and actually fewer MLAs would vote for a border poll in the new Assembly than in the last so it’s a much more complex picture than Deputy McDonald is making it out to be.

“So you see now this growing middle ground of people who don’t want to be defined by religion or by ethnic or national identity and to me that is really encouraging and really presents an opportunity for a new Northern Ireland into the future,” he said.

He urged politicians in the North to form a government and said both the British and Irish governments will engage with the various parties to try to make that happen.

“Sinn Féin have always had this knack of being in government and sort of pretending they’re not,” he said.

“They have played that trick for about 20 years now in Northern Ireland.

“Let’s not forget that the office of first minister and deputy first Minister are co-equal, they have exactly the same powers, the exact same authority, they are co-equal and conjoined.

“So Michelle O’Neill has been joint head of government in Northern Ireland for quite some time now. And indeed has described herself as such.

“So I really hope that the two major parties in the north, Sinn Féin and the DUP again, will come together and honour their responsibilities to form an executive.

“There is a responsibility on Sinn Féin now to reach out to Unionists, to reach out to the Alliance Party and the middle ground, to be willing to compromise, make concessions and to from an executive and the role of the British government and the Irish government is to assist the parties in that and that’s what we will do.”