Mary Lou McDonald has defended making very little change to the Sinn Fein frontbench and said the focus is on improving support for the party.
The Sinn Fein leader said she hoped for more cooperation with other opposition parties in this Dail term and said that Michael Lowry “will not be allowed to masquerade as an opposition TD” following a chaotic row over speaking time in the chamber last week.
The party unveiled its frontbench on Tuesday, which involved keeping Pearse Doherty as finance spokesman, Eoin O Broin as housing spokesman and David Cullinane in health.
Among the changes are the appointment of Matt Carthy as justice spokesman, Donnchadh O Laoghaire to foreign affairs and Pa Daly as climate and energy spokesman.
The new Sinn Fein team (Grainne Ni Aodha/PA)
Ms McDonald said she would “happily hitch my wagon” to Mr Doherty, Mr O Broin and Mr Cullinane on the big issues.
“I will be relying on the experience of those three people to drive things forward, and I think you will see their immense value as the months unfold,” she said.
After the party gained two seats in the general election but dropped its share of the popular vote by 5.5 percentage points, Ms McDonald said improvement was on the agenda for Sinn Fein.
“The first year we met, this morning, we had our first front bench meeting, and the whole conversation has been about, how do we do better? How do we move? Of course, that has to be the objective.”
She added: “But just remember, we have more Dail seats than Fine Gael, and they’re in government.
“We have more seats than Michael Lowry and his crowd and they’re in government. So we are serious contenders.”
Sinn Fein worked with Labour, the Social Democrats, Independent Ireland and People Before Profit on a row over giving Dail speaking time allocated for the opposition to independent TDs who were involved in government formation talks.
Asked if further cooperation between opposition parties would take place, Ms McDonald said: “I hope so.”
“On the big issues of the day, where we have common purpose and common cause, of course it makes sense for us to work together, and I think that we can, and I think working together, we can actually be quite a powerful force in the Dail.
“The government, by definition, has the numbers but that does not mean that we can’t shape, influence policy and outcomes for people.
“And I actually think we have a responsibility to work that as effectively as we can.
“I can’t obviously be prescriptive on other parties, they have to speak for themselves, but it is certainly my wish that we work in that way.”