Sinn Féin will run its own candidate rather than getting behind a united left candidate in the byelection due to take place as a result of Independent TD Catherine Connolly winning the presidential election, party leader Mary Lou McDonald has confirmed.
Ms McDonald instead expressed a preference for encouraging transfers with other left-wing parties for the Galway West byelection.
Sinn Féin joined the Social Democrats, Labour and People Before Profit and left-wing Independents in backing Ms Connolly in the presidential election.
The move to row in behind a single candidate was hugely successful, with Ms Connolly winning 914,143 votes – just more than 63 per cent.
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The election to fill her Dáil seat in Galway West must be called within six months of Ms Connolly taking office on November 11th.
Sinn Féin topped the poll in the Galway West constituency with its candidate Mairéad Farrell in last year’s general election.
On Sunday, Ms McDonald was asked on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics about the possibility of a united left candidate in the byelection.
Ms McDonald said: “Sinn Féin will contest the byelection. We’re all individual, distinct parties.”
She also said: “I hope in that contest, as with others, we will find a way to transfer to and from each other” and “we can still on areas where we have common cause and common platforms, we can put that forward in a very, very constructive way”.
Ms McDonald added: “But remember, in Galway West, the Sinn Féin candidate topped the poll.
“I mean we’ve got a very strong mandate for there, and not alone will we contest that election, we will contest to win that seat and to make sure that it doesn’t fall to the Government.
“I think that would be a bad outcome.”
Asked about the prospect of a transfer pact in the absence of a united left candidate, Ms McDonald said: “Of course I can’t be presumptuous. I have to go and talk to colleagues on that. But that would be my instinct on it, yes.”
As the result unfolded during Saturday, leaders of left-wing parties said Ms Connolly’s victory was a repudiation of the current Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael coalition Government and a message that a left-led government, without either Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, was possible after the next general election.
Ms McDonald said “the next job is to get Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil out of Government”.