SINN FÉIN will make no decision on whether to back Irish-American publisher Niall O’Dowd or any other independent candidate for the presidency until it decides next month whether to run its own candidate, party president Gerry Adams said at the weekend.
He said the party was consulting its members in the Dáil and the Northern Assembly, and would decide at an ardchomhairle meeting in July on whether to run its own candidate for the Áras.
Mr Adams said Sinn Féin had been lobbied by all the independent candidates, including Senator David Norris, Mary Davis and Seán Gallagher as well as Niall O’Dowd, for the support of its 14 TDs and three Senators.
“I met Niall O’Dowd the other day with Mary Lou McDonald and I told him that we’re not going to be giving consideration to supporting anyone until we’ve made our minds up on whether we’re going to run a candidate ourselves,” he said.
Mr Adams was speaking in Cork City Hall where he addressed the second in a series of Sinn Féin organised conferences on Uniting Ireland/Ag Aontú Éireann – Towards a New Republic, which was attended by about 600 people from across Munster.
He disputed the findings of a recent survey that found 52 per cent of Catholics favoured remaining in the UK, with 73 per cent of all people in the North being of a similar view, and with only 4 per cent of Protestants favouring Irish unity.
He said he didn’t believe the survey was accurate as it also showed the SDLP with a 10 per cent lead over Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionist Party being “neck and neck” with the Democratic Unionist Party and neither was correct.
Mr Adams said he believed Sinn Féin had adopted the correct position on the recent visit of Queen Elizabeth but he acknowledged her visit to the Garden of Remembrance was of some significance.
“I said before the visit there could be significance to the visit and I singled out the Garden of Remembrance and the laying of the wreath and the expression of condolences to all those who had been killed or injured,
“I think they are important and welcome but the real significance will be what the governments do and what David Cameron and the Taoiseach do.”
Mr Adams pointed to Mr Cameron’s recent comments to the Northern Ireland assembly that while his political preference was for the North to remain within the UK, he would accept any decision by the people there to join in a united Ireland.
“He was challenged on this by the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and he persisted on this.”