A senior trade unionist has told the Sinn Féin ardfheis he looks forward to working with the party in government, “both north and south”.

John Douglas, Ictu president and general secretary of the Mandate union, praised Sinn Féin for what he described as its "progressive" approach.

“It gives me some heart that there’s an organisation in Ireland and a political party in Ireland fighting for those type of issues that my union has been struggling for for very many years, so I salute you for doing that,” he said in Derry.

“We in the trade union movement want to work with progressive parties north and south and Sinn Féin has a pivotal role to play in the future of this island.”

Mr Douglas said his union was one of the founding members of the anti-water charges movement, Right2Water.

“It’s not only about water. It’s about a vision for the next 100 years,” he said.

He said Sinn Féin was invited to a special May Day conference in Dublin. “We hope to set out a new democratic programme for a new republic north and south, and we look forward to working with Sinn Féin in that regard.”

Mr Douglas thanked the party for its assistance to the trade union movement. “I look forward to working closely with you in government, both north and south,” he added.

Turning to the Stormont House Agreement, Mr Douglas said he wanted to “officially acknowledge” on behalf of the trade union movement the “efforts and success” of Sinn Féin in “protecting welfare”.

The agreement was far from perfect, he said, but it was a reflection of the present political reality in Northern Ireland.

“It was negotiated between a rock and a hard place, between protecting the peace process and the democratic structures in the North and the spectre of direct rule”.

Mr Douglas said the trade union movement had been very critical of some aspects of the agreement, in particular “significant” job losses in the public sector. The jobs would be defended “tooth and nail”, he added.

“We in the trade union movement know that Sinn Féin is an anti-austerity party and we understand the political settlement in the North forces Sinn Féin to share power with political parties which are not anti-austerity.”

Earlier, Dublin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh criticised the JobBridge scheme, which he said “displaces properly paid jobs” and involved “nine months of no wages”. He said it was “disgraceful” that the Labour Party supported the scheme.