President-elect says she will address issues of the North with sensitivity

President-elect Mrs Mary McAleese said she understood the issues of Northern Ireland and would be able to address them sensitively. "One has to be very, very sensitive. There are long-held hurts there."

At a late-night press conference after being declared the winner on the second count, she said she hoped she would bring "affection that I have" for unionists to the situation and her experience "in the field of ecumenics and antisectarianism." To those people who "will be fearful" about her Presidency she said she did "genuinely mean" what she said about building "simple friendships." There was no other hidden agenda.

Asked if she would build bridges to the unionist community by wearing a poppy on Armistice Day, the day of her inauguration, she said: "That's a very interesting suggestion to which I will give considerable thought."

After her declaration, Mary Robinson had stepped away from her political backers, one commentator said, and would Mrs McAleese take this opportunity to do the same?

"I said in the speech I made earlier I will be a President for all the people," she said. "I think it is the role of the President to be President for all people. That's what I intend to be and that's what I hope to be."

She said she was "deeply grateful" to the Tanaiste and the Taoiseach and both their parties for their support during the campaign.

Asked how her presidency would differ from Mrs Robinson's, she said it was "difficult to have any gift of prophecy," and the next seven years would be very different. "Ireland is now a nation in its stride," she said. "It has its shoulders back, not in a smug way."

Who was part of this new Ireland, a reporter asked. "I define it much more broadly than just the Irish at home," she said, echoing one of her final speeches at an Irish centre in Manchester, where she referred to the Irish abroad as the "global Irish family."

Asked how the unionists fitted into this vision, she said: "Many of the unionists do not see themselves as Irish. Some do. Some do not."

She said such a person "who does not want to be part of the Irish family" should be respected as a neighbour and it was important to "recognise their space and recognise their difference."

Asked if the campaign had produced divisions between herself and people in the Republic, she said she believed there were very few. "If there are those, then I will build bridges to these people."

Was her election a "good election result for Sinn Fein" as The Irish Times columnist Mary Holland had stated? Prof McAleese said: "I'm not sure what she means by that. I'd like her to explain what she means." She said she represented Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats.

Would she extend a presidential invitation to the British Queen? "Nothing would give me greater pleasure."

There was laughter when she was asked by a Navan journalist if she would honour her promise to make Dunshaughlin the first stop on her victory route. She said she would be "in touch with the people of Dunshaughlin".

Sunday Tribune journalist Nell McCafferty said it was a pleasure to welcome Mary McAleese to the Presidency. "It'd be an even bigger pleasure to welcome you, Nell," she replied.