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SINN FÉIN LEADER Mary Lou McDonald has said her party will not partake in demonstrations or protests against Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
People Before Profit are holding a demonstration on 7 March calling for a change to Ireland’s government.
Posters for the event which were distributed outside the meeting describe it as a march against Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael returning to government.
But speaking at Sinn Fein’s public meeting in Dublin’s Liberty Hall this evening, McDonald answered a question on whether her party would join the demonstrations by saying it would instead seek to negotiate with other parties about forming a Government.
“You don’t need our permission to go and organise and protest,” she said.
“I would say this to you – the focus of our work is on negotiations with other parties and of course talking to all of you and engaging with you.
“We need to have conversations with all of you but also detailed conversations with other parties and then it comes down to numbers because this is a numbers game, it is about policy but it is also about political will.”
‘Respect our mandate’
More than 800 people attended the party’s first public meeting in Co Cork on Monday night, aimed at drumming up support for them to be in government.
Tonight’s event saw Liberty Hall packed to capacity, with the party’s finance spokesman Pearse Doherty having to address those who were unable to make it into the venue outside.
During the event, McDonald also criticised the leaders of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail for refusing to meet Sinn Féin for government formation talks.
She said: “I have a message for the leaders of those parties who have decided not to speak to us. I say this: we respect your mandate and now it is time that you respect ours.
“I think it is very clear that we will talk to everybody because that is what adults do. I say to them, listen to the voices of the electorate and understand this.
“The vote for change was a vote to get Fianna Fail and Fine Gael out of government and not to put them back in.”
McDonald said the public meetings and conversations with the public will continue, adding that the party and its supporters wanted “real change”.
Meanwhile, the party’s deputy leader Michelle O’Neill told the crowd that Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin have “done nothing” to prepare for a referendum on a united Ireland.
O’Neill also argued that planning for a poll on a united Ireland must begin and she expects one will be held within the next five years.
“Change is coming. It is an inevitable position that we are all in,” O’Neill said.
“I have no doubt in my mind that in the immediate future we will be voting in a border poll.”
Contains reporting from Stephen McDermott.
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Merkel and Sarkozy want Greece to survive if only because there have so much money buried into it.
If that wasn’t the case, I suspect their efforts on Greece’s behalf, would not be so vigorous.
In the end (understandable to an extent) they are looking out for their own country in the long run.
We would do similar.
That said, I still wouldn’t trust Merkel and Sarkozy as far as I could throw them. They are in each others pockets and out with their own similar agendas too much, that its leaving many in the rest of Europe very uncomfortable.
Hmm. Sarkozy is quite small. I’d say you could throw him quite a distance ;)
LOL – very good!
hrmm, did they say they believe this regardless of a default, or are they saying this to try to continue preventing a default, I wonder?
(honest question, btw, not sarcastic as it appears :))
Well Done Frau Ferkel..you managed to destroy European Union with the help of your little freund Sarkosy.
And the sooner the better. This EU thing is simply not workable. One organisation whose upper echelons advocate greater unity in order to secure better jobs for themselves, claiming to represent 27 countries with more than 40 different ethnic groups and about 50 different languages, with about 10 different religions, punctured with enclaves and exclaves, spread across 12 time zones with a “single currency” used only by 17 of the states with no common financial policy and massive discrepancies between wealth and poverty amongst the member states and within member states, with vastly differing ideas on what democracy actually means, with kings and queens and dukes and princes and presidents and chancellors…..
I’m surprised and gratified to find myself in agreement Brian, and you put it better than I ever could.. What was wrong with our economic community anyway?
In fairness Daithí, I think it was just on the one topic that our radically diverged. I think for the most part our ideas are pretty similar based on some of the comments you have made elsewhere. Indeed, what was wrong with the EEC? I don’t see how it couldn’t be expanded to include more countries without necessitating the erosion of national sovereignty and democracy.
Not surprising that they want Greece to stay in the Euro and not default. The Greeks owe the French banks over €45 billion that would make even Sarkozy’s eye’s water….
12 time zones? Really??
Yes, 12 time zones. French Guiana, as an overseas department of France, is situated on the South American continent. It is an integral part of the EU and is situated at UTC-3 (that’s 3 hours behind our time zone). French Polynesia, a special territory of the EU as well as being an overseas collectivity of France, is situated in the Pacific Ocean and is spread across three time zones: UTC-10, UTC-9:30 and UTC-9. Therefore, at its furthest extent West, the EU includes a territory situated at UTC-10. There are two possible candidates for furthest territory East: BIOT (British Indian Ocean Territory) located in the Indian Ocean which is at UTC+6 or Cyprus which is located at UTC+2. Therefore, depending on definition, the EU extends from UTC-10 to UTC+6 (17 times zones) or UTC-10 to UTC+2 (13 time zones). I originally stated 12, but I forgot about our own time zone of UTC±0! (As an aside, a little known fact is that technically Ireland is not located in the same time zone as the UK – the UK’s standard time zone is based on Winter time which is GMT. Ireland’s standard time zone is actually based on Summer time which is IST or Irish Standard Time. The UK adds an hour every summer to become BST or British Summer Time. We subtract an hour every winter to become WET or Western European Time. It’s simply incidental that the two happen to correlate – i.e. WET = GMT and IST = BST).
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