Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said comments from Labour leader Eamon Gilmore today that the election is now a three way contest had ‘a certain arrogance’ to them.
Mr Adams, who is seeking a seat in Louth, also hit out at what he said was the Labour vision at leadership level, saying it was ‘a Fine Gael Government with Labour in it.’
Speaking in Dundalk this morning, where he erected a poster of himself in the town centre, he said Sinn Féin would not tie itself to another party as the Green Party and Labour have done in the past.
However, he said his party would be open to agreeing a programme for Government.
Reacting to a poll today which showed a drop in support for Fine Gael and a rise for Sinn Féin, he said: ‘There is three and a half weeks or so to go and opinion polls come and go, I wouldn't pay too much heed to them.
‘You know the normal response from politicians is to laud the ones which are approving of what you are doing and dismiss the ones that don't... I tend to just try and ignore them all.’
Reacting to Mr Gilmore's claims that the poll showed the election was now a three-way contest, Mr Adams said people talking to the media can get a ‘rush of blood to the head.’
‘I don't want to be too provocative in what I say but there is a certain arrogance in all of that. The people haven't cast a vote, hasn't been one single vote cast.’
While declining to say how many seats Sinn Féin expect to have in the next Dáil, he said the party’s 40 candidates will be fighting to secure a seat in each of the 37 constituencies they are standing in.
Post-election he said the party would not put Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael into Government, nor would it ‘tie ourselves on like the Greens or Labour have done in other decades, we want to bring about change and if we can agree a programme for Government that is fair enough and if we can't that is fair enough as well, we will continue to be agents for change.’
He said Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were ‘natural bedfellows’ and criticised Labour, saying: ‘It doesn't make sense to me how any party which is progressive could have a vision which is as narrow and as stunted as that which is about putting FG into power.’
‘The Labour vision at leadership level is a Fine Gael government with Labour in it.
'That will not make any change or any difference. What I would argue very very strongly is there is for the first time the possibility of having a government which has neither Fine Gael nor Fianna Fail in it.’
