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SINN FÉIN LEADER Gerry Adams said he does not think the instability of the Northern Assembly is a threat to the peace process.
Time will be called on Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government at 5pm as no deal has been reached between the DUP and Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin has declined to re-nominate a Deputy First Minister in Stormont following the resignation of Martin McGuinness last week – meaning a snap election is now on the cards.
Speaking to reporters ahead of the party’s think-in in Dublin, Adams said he is not concerned that the controversy will threaten the peace process.
“What I would be concerned about is that another generation which has grown up free from conflict is now seeing the negativities of sectarianism: the negativity of intolerance, the negativity of disrespect. I would be concerned about that, but I think in the short-term, the peace process is firm. It has support and that is not going to shift.”
Adams also criticised Taoiseach Enda Kenny in relation to the imminent dissolution of the Assembly.
When asked by TheJournal.ie if he thought both the British and Irish governments had dropped the ball on issues that threatened the continuation of the DUP-Sinn Féin power-sharing arrangement, he said:
I don’t think the Taoiseach has a good instinct on these issues. I think he values the peace process, he obviously appreciates the work that has been done and wants that to continue – but the work that was done wasn’t done easily and it wasn’t done with grand speeches. It was done by really, really hard work by dedicated people from all sides and that’s what the Taoiseach has to do.
Adams said the Kenny is constitutionally bound as Taoiseach to deal with the issues at play in the north.
Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, Adams said it is the responsibility of both the British and Irish governments to ensure there is equality.
“It doesn’t even rest with the administration in Stormont,” he added.
Even if I put this in the kindest way possible, there is a huge onus on the Taoiseach to fulfill the responsibilities for all the people on this island in terms of an international treaty, an international agreement of which he is a co-guarantor.
“There is an onus on the Taoiseach to deal with this issue, I have argued with him and debated this privately and publicly and I have tried to do it in a considered way.
Adams said it all well and good for the Taoiseach to make telephone calls “in the early hours of the morning” to the Principal Private Secretary to the UK Prime Minister when there is a crisis, but he said hard graft needed to be put in also.
“These problems we have been flagging for a long time. What is required is consistency, is strategic and ongoing engagement with the British government and our friends internationally to ensure the British government upholds its obligations.
“The British government refuses, refuses, to put the mechanisms in place to deal with legacy issues that were agreed at Stormont House two years ago – refuses to do it. What does the Irish government choose to do about it? That’s the big question. There is no point lip servicing it – it needs diplomatic outreach,” said Adams.
The Sinn Féin leader put equal blame on the British government for the current state of affairs.
I am not surprised by the British government, because the British government will always act in what is its own self-interest and it is very good at doing that - and that doesn’t include the north. The Brexit decision was taken without any contemplation for the people in the north.
Adams continued by saying that the Irish government has not called on the British government to take heed of the issues at play.
He said Sinn Féin is going forward “confident” in its resolve to be back in the institutions – but said the basis of that has to be the Good Friday Agreement.
When asked if he would be consider a move to politics in Stormont, Adams said:
“We have a job of work in this State to do and it falls on me to be part of that.”
Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald was asked if she was considering a move from north Dublin to north of the border, to which she replied: “Absolutely not.”
The same question was posed to Pearse Doherty.
I represent the most northern part of Ireland and I am very content to do so.
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For legal reasons the following may or may not have happened :) I was once in a Nissan bluebird where an entire under 16 football team was being brought to a match because the bus never turned up. 7 in the back seat sitting on knees, 3 on the front passenger seat and 5 in the boot, two lying down tight to the back seat and 3 sitting across the boot opening, boot was left open. We got there and we won :)
@Pat Maher: Love it Pat. Brilliant!!!
‘Maybe they were making a trunk call’ Ouuu! A real zinger than one! The lads down the station must have been falling around the place laughing.
@Nicky O’Donnell: Now they want to be comedians on top of everything !!
Surely should have been boot-y call
@Nicky O’Donnell: and then it went on social meeja, it was class
@Nicky O’Donnell: I bet your great fun in work
I had eight in a starlet once
@P.J. Nolan: Your mother must be so proud !
@Shane Freeney:
Ha ha, maybe I could have worded that better….
When I was in school our PE teacher brought the full U’12 football team to an away match in his Fiat Ritmo.
@Nick Allen:
Many a underage team went through that particular ritual.
Seriously? They posted that on Twitter?!
Keystone cops.
@Paul Watchorn: Why? Real police only tweet about murders?
Its the Garda TRAFFIC twitter account
Would expect nothing less from a yaris driver, across the board yaris drivers are the worst drivers on the road.
@Let free speech live: Was this your postgraduate thesis?
@Let free speech live: I’d like a journal fact check on this, please
@Let free speech live: up the yaris!
@Let free speech live: Thank god someone else thinks that, I thought I was the only one. What is it about them?!
@Let free speech live: Not true.
It’s the Nissan Micra drivers that hold that accolade.
@Dave Sherman: same class of driver but more yaris drivers than micra drivers around.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: It was actually and it was very well received.
@Larissa Caroline Nikolaus: I would welcome it, after 10 years on the road as a hgv driver believe me they are consistently the worst. If a yaris driver indicates left there is a strong chance they will turn right.
@Neal Ireland Hello.: Ok so that was the funniest thing I’ve read in a while lol thank you !! Needed a giggle today !!!
@Dave Sherman: They’re one and the same, the Micra drivers are moving on to the Yaris now.
They found a right spare in the boot didn’t They!
Obviously someone was dropping their mother in law home.
Reminds me of my childhood back of my das opel rekord with all my cousin and sometimes my gran n aunt on holidays to Wexford. Good times so glad I have dose memory’s something about those days. I think the 2000s is truly the first time things are different.
This droll gombeen in the garda needs to be hauled in for his droll twitter remarks, the Garda line ‘we don’t comment on individual cases’ never applies to him. Who is this droll troll civil servant?
@Tom Phelan: He could easily be your brother or father Tom ‘the bore’ Phelan!
@Joe Conlon: there’s no way any member of my family could be that deadbeat
@Tom Phelan: haha, fair enough
Why was he hidden? Was he ugly??
@WJH: How do you know it was a “he”?
@Tricia Golden: Does it really matter??? Seriously???
Six of us in a J.C.B. Five of us squeezed round the driver. All was fine until we went over a bump and someone fell on the back acter (spelling?) control.. And 10 in a Volkswagon Variant, an estate car from the 1970s also known as a “deviant.” Two in front, four in back seat, one on the floor (it was rear engined so no transmission tunnel,) and three in the estate part.
Who’s there ??
Dad?
Why is the photo reversed ?
The car is pulled in on the left on the way out of Limerick on the ‘dark road’, sorry Dock road.
No one – they’re never there when you need them !
Knock Knock !
A Garda with a sense of humor ‘ trunk call ‘ . Who would have thought ?
@Mary Mc Carthy: They often crack jokes on Twitter, what of it? Isn’t it an odder thing to do, putting a passenger in the boot?
Knock Knock !
Ok waiting fir the mini driver. Any minute now…
Turns out
It was 15
AND they were women
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