Varadkar would rather leave FG than join coalition with SF, he tells RTÉ documentary

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he would resign from Fine Gael before leading the party into a Coalition Government with Sinn Féin.

Mr Varadkar made the remarks in the second part of Two Tribes, a two-part RTÉ documentary series on the history and legacy of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

“I would be totally against it, could not lead my party in a Coalition with Sinn Féin,” the Taoiseach told interviewer Sean O’Rourke in the programme to be aired on Thursday night.

Asked if he would step down as leader of Fine Gael rather than bring the party into a Coalition with Sinn Féin, Mr Varadkar said: “I would resign as a member.”

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When it was put to him that “the gun is there as part of Fine Gael’s tradition” as revolutionary Michael Collins sent men out to shoot others in the War of Independence, Mr Varadkar said: “He didn’t send people out to blow up chip shops. He didn’t blow up buses. He didn’t blow up shopping centres.”

[ ‘The beauty and risk of Leo’: Pressure is on for Varadkar to deliver as taoiseach ]

In an interview for the same programme, Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin leaves the door open to the party joining Sinn Féin in a Coalition Government.

“I think economically and politically there would be huge difficulty in going into Government with Sinn Féin, but I would say in the next general election the idea of ruling out parties may not be as strong. In other words, we will leave it to the people to decide,” he said.

Fianna Fáil senator Lisa Chambers said that a future Coalition with Sinn Féin was possible.

“A lot of our members can very clearly remember the Troubles and I think would be quite upset actually at the prospect of that, but from my own perspective, being honest about it, I don’t think it is something that we can ultimately rule out,” she said.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald told O’Rourke that Sinn Féin would be willing to talk to any potential Coalition partners to form a Government after the next election.

“I will speak to everybody ... because I think that is what grown-ups do. I think that is the adult, and in fact the respectful, thing to do,” she said.

Responding to criticism of Sinn Féin from the two other parties, Ms McDonald said: “As our support has grown and theirs has diminished, their anxiety to cast us in a poor light also increased and that is the cut and thrust of politics.”

The television series charts the history of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael from parties emerging from opposing Civil War factions to becoming Coalition partners in Government in 2020.

Former Fianna Fáil Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said that Sinn Féin had to be given “some acknowledgment” for shifting a large proportion of their polices “into the mainstream”.

“The more Sinn Féin comes into [the] mainstream, the more support they are gaining from a lot of people,” he told the programme.

In the first episode of Two Tribes, broadcast on Wednesday, Martin Mansergh, a former adviser to Fianna Fáil taoisigh, said there was a “nervousness” about possible Sinn Féin opposition to the 1998 Belfast Agreement which underpins the Northern Ireland peace process.

He told the programme that Sinn Féin contemplated supporting the referendum by ratifying the agreement in Northern Ireland but opposing it in the referendum in the Republic.

“They had literature printed against the changes to Article Two and Three,” he said, referring to the territorial claim over Northern Ireland in the Constitution that was eventually removed with the ratification of the agreement on both sides of the Border.

Mr Ahern told the programme that he believed the release of the Balcombe Street Gang, a group of Provisional IRA bombers captured in London, and their appearance at the Sinn Féin ardfheis in May 1998, helped secure the party’s support for the agreement.

“I think the euphoria of that made sure that we got it across the line,” he said.

The two-part Two Tribes series will be broadcast at 9.30pm on Wednesday and 10.05pm on Thursday on RTÉ One.