Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald has said she retains the “full confidence of the party North and South” despite its disappointing local and European election results in the Republic.
Speaking following a meeting of the party’s Ard Comhairle in Dublin, Ms McDonald said she will lead the party into the next general election.
She admitted that a review of the party’s election performance in the Republic suggested that she needed to be better at bringing clarity to the party’s policy offering and to be more accessible to party members.
She also revealed that they told her to be “my absolute and authentic self” but added: “They have told me that they expect better engagement with the grassroots and some even within the organisation at the various leadership levels of the party say they want more access to me. They want me to be more available.
“Everybody in the party who knows me knows I am not a person who is precious about criticism. If I was I wouldn’t have lasted as long.”
Sinn Féin finished third in the local and European elections with an average of under 12 per cent of the vote.
Ms McDonald said it had been a “tale of two elections” as the party had outperformed exceptions by taking seven seats in the Westminster general election while increasing its share of the vote.
“We made all the right calls in the North but we didn’t mirror that south of the Border. Their main ask of me was to listen. If there was a criticism of me, it was that I didn’t pay enough attention to what was said of me from the base up.”
When asked if it was fair comment, she responded: “Absolutely, I accept that as fair comment.”
After emerging from the Ard Comhairle meeting and flanked by the North’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill, newly elected MEP Kathleen Funchion and front bench spokespersons Louise O’Reilly and Matt Carthy, Ms McDonald read out a statement acknowledging the disappointing result in the elections.
The party admitted that it “failed to have the backs” of many of its core supporters. It had lost trust and support in comparison with the result in the North.
Sinn Féin had also got it wrong in supporting the family and care referendums which were roundly defeated by the electorate, the statement said.
On the issue of immigration, Ms McDonald said the party was not taking a “harder line, but a clearer line” on it and there had been a “lack of clarity” about their position.
Their electorate wants asylum applications to be processed swiftly and “clear criteria for determining who can come here, whether they can work, and what support they may receive.”
Consistent polling show the party’s base is among the most hardline on illegal immigration into the State.
Ms McDonald said the concerns of many people within working class communities had not been taken seriously and that it was wrong to dismiss their concerns as being “sidelined or branded. We need to move away from that.
“We represent lots of communities that really struggle, that have struggled inter-generationally with lack of opportunities and very poor service provision. That’s a reality.
“We need to have a system that is resolutely anti-racist and recognises everybody’s right to be treated with dignity and fairness, that also makes a demand that the immigration system works efficiently and fairly.
“There was a frustration, certainly among a section of our base, that they weren’t being heard. I think there is a belief that we didn’t have their backs, that we didn’t reflect adequately enough, consistently enough the concerns that decent people have.”
The review clears the way for selection conventions to start in the summer for an election they anticipate will happen in the autumn.
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