Sinn Féin failed to build the sort of alliances it should have done across the political left in the lead-up to the last general election, party leader Mary Lou McDonald has said.
She said she had learned from last November’s experience and was aware of the growing need for left-leaning Opposition parties to work together more closely.
Speaking at the trade union-organised Robert Tressell Festival on Saturday in Liberty Hall, Dublin, Ms McDonald said she was proud of Sinn Féin’s achievements but also “conscious of our shortcomings”.
“I will say very, very openly that in the last election, as kind of the larger party [of the left] going in and emerging from it, it became apparent to me we had fallen down in respect of building those collaborative relationships more strongly and I’m not going to make that mistake again,” she said.
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“I don’t we think we have the luxury any more of looking at our own peculiarities or the tyranny of small differences, tactical differences or even substantive differences. I think we are facing a real challenge now and we have to decide: ‘Are we up for this?’.”
Ms McDonald was taking part in a panel discussion with Labour TD Marie Sherlock, Social Democrats TD Sinéad Gibney and People Before Profit TD Ruth Coppinger.
She said Sinn Féin accepted that in order to make a difference to the people who vote for the party, “we are going to have to coalesce”.
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Ms Sherlock described the last general election as “an own goal” for the left parties but said there was “enormous potential for us all to paint a picture of a credible, working alternative”.
“But the political will has to be there and if we are going to do it, we have to do it as equals,” she said.
Ms Sherlock said there had been greater co-operation between the parties in the new Dáil, but she suggested it was not enough if the Government parties were to be challenged and the ideas of the far right effectively countered.
Ms Gibney acknowledged there were people in her party, and others, who would baulk at greater collaboration with specific individuals or their parties, but said they needed to work together to offer “a real alternative”.
She said there was evidence of progress being made – noting that her election in Dublin Rathdown was aided by transfers from Sinn Féin and other left candidates – “but we can’t be in denial about the challenges involved, we are all also competing for the same votes”.
Ms Coppinger said any future alliance would have to challenge the idea Ireland could have “low or absolutely no tax on multinational corporations”.
“I think the huge issue in Ireland has been about coalition and the fact the parties of the left, the parties that would claim to be of the left, that have gone into coalition with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, have invariable gotten eaten up,” she said.
“We saw the Green Party getting absolutely destroyed in the last government so I think people do want to know where you stand on that and I do think ruling out coalition with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would be a good start.”
