There is “no shortage” of countries willing to fund Ukraine’s military efforts, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said on Sunday as she defended her party’s opposition to the State’s participation in an EU loan for the war-torn country.
The €90 billion loan is to support Ukraine as it resists the Russian invasion. Of the overall total, €30 billion is for general financial support and €60 billion is for military equipment.
Sinn Féin has been criticised over its opposition to the initiative, which was approved in the European Parliament, where the party’s two MEPs voted against it.
Hungary – whose prime minister, Viktor Orban, is seen as an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin – has in recent days moved to block the loan.
During an interview on RTÉ Radio 1’s This Week programme, McDonald was asked why Sinn Féin opposed the support package for Ukraine. She said her party stands “in solidarity with Ukraine against Putin” and his “illegal invasion” but that “spending tens of billions more of taxpayers’ money on more and more weaponry is not the way to resolve this conflict … The full international effort has to be around diplomacy, peacemaking.”
She said Sinn Féin backs humanitarian support for Ukraine and sanctions against Putin.
Ukraine, she added, has “no shortage of countries” willing to fund the military effort, but the Republic is a neutral country.
“As a matter of principle and policy, we do not support, and we have never supported the creeping militarisation of the European Union, which has now turned to a gallop.”
The Sinn Féin leader was also challenged on a tribute she posted to Brendan Bik McFarlane on the X social media platform.
McFarlane – who died last year – was imprisoned in Northern Ireland for his part in a 1975 IRA attack on a pub in the Protestant Shankill Road in Belfast, which killed five people.
McDonald wrote on X that McFarlane “dedicated his life to the pursuit of freedom, unity, peace and equality … It was a life well lived, a life that shaped a legacy that will inspire generations to come.”
During the interview, McDonald was asked why she would use such language as Sinn Féin sought a united Ireland that was welcoming to Unionists.
“Unionists are indispensable to the building of a new Ireland and Irish unity and Unionists are entitled to remember their dead as well,” she replied.
McDonald said “we have contested history” and came through long years of conflict.
“People suffered on all sides, and people suffered at the hands of the IRA, too. I acknowledge all of those things.
“But I would also say that in the journey to peace, many, many Republicans were very significant figures in making that possible and sustaining that peace and Bik McFarlane was one of those.”
McDonald also criticised the Government over the issue of special needs assistants (SNAs) in schools. A controversial review of SNA allocations was paused last week after criticism from teachers, parents and unions, but questions remain over what this will mean for the provision of posts in some schools from September.
She argued that the pause has “fuelled concerns” and said the Government needs to “go into reverse and make it absolutely clear that schools will have the SNA supports that they require”.
School SNA row teaches Government a valuable lesson
Separately, Sinn Féin announced last week that its politicians would not attend St Patrick’s Day events in the White House next month due to the Trump administration’s backing of Israel during the war in Gaza.
US ambassador to Ireland Edward Walsh later said in a statement that “announcing a boycott of an event for which invitations have neither been extended nor finalised is premature”.
McDonald said Sinn Féin was “honour-bound to take a position of principle on this” as there is “a genocide occurring in Gaza … Our position on it is well known in the United States and our reason for not attending events in the White House is equally known and I think understood.”
On the ambassador’s comments about invitations not having been issued, McDonald added: “The invitations for these events always come out in the week ahead of them. That’s normally the practice.”