Sinn Féin will only enter Government to deliver a ‘Progressive Republican Programme’, Mary Lou McDonald tells Ard Fheis

» John Hedges

An Phoblacht Editor

‘We are the party that will challenge the status quo and the insider culture which has damaged Ireland so badly’

MARY LOU McDONALD TD has made it clear that Sinn Féin will only go into government in the Dáil to deliver a ‘Progressive, Republican Programme for Government’.

She insisted that Sinn Féin will not go into Government just to make up the numbers.

Speaking at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in Dublin on Friday night, she said:

“This party is determined to implement our policies in government, North and South.

“Some opponents falsely claim that we are not interested in government. They are very wrong.

“We are the party of change, of solutions, of new horizons.

“We are the party that will challenge the status quo and the insider culture which has damaged Ireland so badly.

“We in Sinn Féin are very interested in governing, in good government, in leading government.

“We will ask the people to give us the chance to be part of a government, to lead from the front in a new government.”

She continued:

“Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil shout loudly that they don’t want Sinn Féin in government. Of course they don’t! They have had it all their own way for nearly a century. They will do what they can to cling to the status quo, to old politics, to power.

“However, it is the people who will decide when we enter government – not our opponents who have every vested interest in keeping us on the outside. 

“We will not go into Government just to make up the numbers. We will enter government to deliver a Progressive Republican Programme for Government.

“To build a united Ireland and a republic based on social justice and equality, to implement radical policies that can tackle the issues of homelessness, the crisis in our hospitals, that create meaningful, well-paid jobs, and which will reinvest in our public services, we need a progressive government in this state.

“So far, Ireland has had governments for financial speculators, bankers and property developers. We have had governments for the wealthy and the Irish Golden Circle.

“We have had a succession of corrupt ‘mé féin’ governments serving the interests of an inherently corrupt elite.

“What we need, for the first time in this state, is a government for the people. A government that would build an economy that works for our people not against them.

“I believe that such a government will only come about with Sinn Féin participation.”