SINN FÉ IN:SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams said comments from Labour leader Eamon Gilmore yesterday suggesting the election is now a three-way contest had a "certain arrogance" to them.
Reacting to Mr Gilmore’s claims that polls showed the election was now a three-way contest, Mr Adams said people talking to the media can get a “rush of blood to the head”. Speaking in Dundalk, he said: “I don’t want to be too provocative in what I say but there is a certain arrogance in all of that. The people haven’t cast a vote.”
While declining to say how many seats Sinn Féin expects to win he said the party’s 40 candidates will be fighting to secure a seat in each of the 37 constituencies they are standing in.
He said Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were natural bedfellows and criticised Labour by saying: “It doesn’t make sense to me how any party which is progressive could have a vision which is as narrow and as stunted as that which is about putting FG into power”.
“The Labour vision at leadership level is a Fine Gael government with Labour in it. That will not make any change or any difference. What I would argue very very strongly is that there is for the first time the possibility of having a government which has neither Fine Gael nor Fianna Fáil in it. All of that is business for after the election not before the election.
“I know expediency rules and if they need us they will come looking for us. The only reason we want to be in government is to bring about change. We know what it’s like to be in government, we are in government in the North. We know the difficulties and the challenges which that presents but we are only in there to bring about change. We only want to be in government here if we have a mandate.”