Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has accused the Government of being the “biggest barrier” to a united Ireland due to what she described as a failure to plan for a referendum.
In advance of the upcoming 30th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement in 2028, McDonald has accused Taoiseach Micheál Martin of trying to “stifle” unification.
The Sinn Féin leader said she believes this is the decade “when Irish unity can be won” in a referendum. But that unification will require vision, determination, and leadership, she added.
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“But instead, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin pushes back, chooses to stifle, hinder and avoid the most important national conversation of our time. It is telling that the biggest barrier today to preparing and planning Irish unity is the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael Government,” she said.
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“My message to the Taoiseach is direct: you have a responsibility to lead on Irish reunification. To persist with inaction and drift is a dereliction of your duty. It’s not good enough to be a bystander as history unfolds.”
She said the Government had a responsibility to plan for constitutional change and unification.
McDonald was speaking on Sunday at her party’s event commemorating the Easter Rising at Arbour Hill. The Sinn Féin Easter commemoration travelled from Wolfe Tone Quay to Arbour Hill Cemetery in Dublin during the afternoon.
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In her speech, she accused the Coalition parties of trying to “desecrate” the “sacred” places of the Rising – like the GPO and Moore Street in Dublin city centre – for commercial, corporate interests.
“These streets, laneways and buildings belong to our revolutionary history, to the people of Ireland, to future generations,” she said. “Sites that must be preserved and transformed into a cultural and historical quarter worthy of the sacrifices of our courageous patriots.”
McDonald also claimed that the Government plans to undo the triple lock – a mechanism by which the Government, Dáil and UN Security Council must sign off on plans to deploy more than 12 Defence Forces members abroad. The Sinn Féin leader said this was an effort to “send our sons and daughters off to fight and die in military conflicts and colonial wars that have nothing to do with our country”.
