Mary Lou McDonald takes centre ground for election

Mary Lou McDonald and Pearse Doherty get equal prominence with party leader Gerry Adams in Sinn Féin's billboard election posters unveiled this week.

The posters feature all three TDs, with Ms McDonald, Sinn Féin's most prominent southern representatives, in the centre and to the foreground a little, with Mr Adams and Mr Doherty on either side.

The placing of Ms McDonald in the centre may well come down to symmetry as she is the only female in the photography.

But the decision to include all three in the poster show the rising importance the party attaches to the Dublin Central TD and Donegal-based Mr Doherty as leadership figures.

The party's election slogan on the poster is "Better Off with Sinn Féin". It is a variation of a slogan used by the British Labour Party in 1997: "Britain Deserves Better".

Other key messages and themes on the billboard poster - the first of which has been erected on Dublin’s southern quays near Heuston Station - are “delivering a fair recovery” and “equal rights for all citizens”.

The party also identifies the six key headings under which it will fight the election: workers, fairness, business, health, childcare and housing