Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said there was now a stronger bloc of parties on the left post-election and it made sense to talk to each other, as “things can change” in forming a government.
“The numbers are very clear. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do have the numbers to form a government, albeit with some external support. However, a deal hasn’t been reached. A week is a long time in politics and many things can change,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
“So ... our view is that a Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael coalition is the worst possible option, despite the fact that Micheál Martin seems intent on bringing Fine Gael in as a junior partner.
“We said we were going to talk to other like-minded progressive political parties on the other side of the election. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. And in the first instance, it’s to assess what are the options, hat are the possibilities? Micheál Martin clearly has the upper hand, there’s no denying that.
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“The conversations that we’re hoping to have with the Social Democrats, with the Labour Party and then with the other progressive groupings are about, look, where are we? What are the possibilities here? What are the areas of co-operation? But also everybody’s in opposition.”
Mr Ó Broin said “everybody seems to have accepted” that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have done a deal. “They haven’t done a deal. And unlike 2020, Fianna Fáil has the upper hand. They have ten more seats and I think there’s going to be some real challenges to Fine Gael – do they really want to be the junior partner. Do they want to have less time as taoiseach if they get a rotating Taoiseach? Do they want to have less ministries?”
Sinn Féin also had to meet as a parliamentary party and listen to their new TDs, he said. The party would be moving forward “step by step. I think that’s the sensible thing for us to do”.
The party had said throughout the campaign that its first preference was a government without Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, but that if those numbers were not available then they would talk to everybody, “and that includes Fianna Fáil,” he added.
And if you look at what’s happened on the left side of the political spectrum, Sinn Féin has consolidated, increased our seats; the Social Democrats and Labour have increased their seats. That’s a powerful bloc of 16 progressive politicians for opposition who campaigned and advocated for change.
“So again, we’re not losing the run of ourselves. All we want to do in the first instance is talk to the other parties and see what options are available. And again, there’s a possibility that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael won’t reach a deal.”
Mr Ó Broin said the briefings from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael indicated they did not think there would be a government until February “despite all the challenges that the country has. So we’re going to take this step by step and we’re going to do exactly what we said we would do during the election”.
Mr Ó Broin acknowledged it had been “a very, very difficult number of months” for Sinn Féin, but the party turned that around, he said. “We have consolidated our position as one of the three large parties. We won back seats that we had lost because of defections, and we also gained seats with ten new TDs joining the Dáil.
”I think in fairness to both Mary Lou McDonald as the party leader and the party’s campaign teams on the ground, not just the candidates, but also the directors of election campaign team, in a very short space of time we turned that around to have what I think is a decent result.”
“Any election where you win more seats and when you consolidate your position, particularly given the difficult year we’ve had, there are lots of positives. Is it perfect? By no means. Nor would I describe it as a bad election.”
Mr Ó Broin also defended party leader Ms McDonald who he said had a very strong campaign. She was one of the reasons why the party had been able “to turn the ship around”.
Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice has warned “a lot of shadow boxing is going to go on” in the negotiations to form a government.
Fine Gael will play hardball, he told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show. “The one thing that everyone has to realise is we need stability.”
Mr Fitzmaurice said that if Labour or the SocDems were to go into government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael they would not receive many positions or ministries.
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