Sinn Féin leader says her party 'must learn' from the last year

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Mary Lou McDonald said the party has to work to convince voters that an alternative coalition is possible

Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald speaking with the Irish Examiner's acting political editor Paul Hosford in Leinster House. The longer interview will be published on Monday in print and online. Picture: Gareth Chaney

Sinn Féin did not do enough to convince the electorate an alternative government was possible in last year’s election, party leader Mary Lou McDonald has said.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Ms McDonald said the party “must learn” from last year and be in a position to better make the argument that a coalition without Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael is possible.

“We hadn’t done enough within Sinn Féin, as Sinn Féin to build and develop those relationships and that politics and that collaboration at that point. We simply hadn’t,” she said when asked why the electorate had not opted for a change of government.

However, she said the party is now working with opposition parties, though Sinn Féin has not yet decided if it will back the combined left presidential candidate Catherine Connolly.

There are others that we have worked with, I think, actually very successfully, certainly since the last election, across the combined opposition. And they are in many respects, very different from us.

“That is true, and that’s a good thing and a necessary thing. But there are points at which we have absolute common cause. I feel that we have an absolute responsibility to work together.”

She said she believes the Government is “useless”, taking particular aim at its attitude towards Irish reunification. She said a referendum on the issue must come by 2030 and the Government “isn’t reading the tea leaves”.

“There is a disconnect between the political system and what’s actually happening out on the ground, and that’s not good. All of us need to know that we are all paying attention to the shifts, demographic, political, electoral that are manifest, and that we are engaging with it, and that we are responsibly and thoughtfully managing the process through that.”

She said there needs to be a “national conversation” about what a united Ireland would look like and the Government “is not doing that and that’s a huge failure”.

She also rejected the idea that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage could, as he has suggested, revisit the Good Friday Agreement.

“Doesn’t all of this reflect just what a bad idea it is to have the future of Ireland, the stability, the economic prosperity of our island, contingent upon who might be in number 10 Downing St?”