AnalysisSinn Fein leaders are signalling significant shifts in policy, writes Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
Led by Gerry Adams, several hundred Sinn Féin delegates yesterday gathered in Dublin for a one-day conference entitled Engaging Modern Ireland. The title is itself revealing.
For "engaging" is exactly what Sinn Féin, who just a few short years ago believed that they were on an inevitable climb to power, has been failing to do in the Republic.
Mr Adams highlighted past successes in Dáil, European and local elections since 2002, though it merely put into stark relief the party's current woes south of the border.
Seven months on from the general election, the membership is tired of being defensive, tired of debating the poor result and tired of trying to understand why things went wrong.
Most members - or many, anyway - seem to understand that life is not going to get any better unless there are fundamental changes.
And there were signals that significant shifts in Sinn Féin's policy platform are on the way.
Since the election, the party has undergone a lengthy period of self-analysis.
For too long, the party's image has been "out of sync" with life in the Republic, seeming to represent low-level equality and a distaste for business, and rarely speaking about aspiration.
"We need to be as comfortable with words like 'prosperity' and 'economic opportunity' as we are with 'equality and 'independence'," Mr Adams told colleagues.
The conference in Griffith College - perhaps appropriately the largest privately-owned third-level institution in the State - marks a quiet, but significant change in the party.
"We are here to put an end to the lie that Sinn Féin embraces poverty. We are for prosperity and that poverty is the enemy," said Louth county councillor Thomas Sharkey.
"We are today putting an end to the canard that we are economically unsophisticated," declared Leitrim councillor Martin Kenny, when he outlined the needs of small business.
If voters believed last May that Sinn Féin was "economically unsophisticated" then the party leader has to take a significant share of the blame.
Adams's woeful television performances, where his stuttering command of economics was brutally exposed, did much to harm the party's reputation for being smart.
Short of giving out share options, Sinn Féin yesterday could hardly have adopted a more pro-enterprise stance, but its attitudes to immigration are more cloaked. Dublin MEP Mary Lou McDonald stressed the need for integration, equality, fairness and opposition to racism.
However, two short sentences in her speech may prove to be key and certainly require greater explanation: "Sinn Féin is not in favour of what is called an open-door policy. We need to manage immigration."
The language is new. Up to now, Sinn Féin has been strongly in favour of both immigrants and immigration, sometimes jarring with its support base. The question now is whether the party will temper its views.