Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, has apologised for how the resignation of Niall Ó Donnghaile was handled.
“My first instinct in that case was to pass on the complaint that we had received to the statutory authorities in this case, to the PSNI and to social services north of the border. That's how child protection protocols operate. I very much regret the statement that I made as Niall Ó Donnghaile left Sinn Féin and his political career.
"I've spoken about this before. I've been in contact with the young person in question through their mother and if I had to do it again, I would not have made that statement at the time. There were concerns around Niall Ó Donnghaile and a mental health crisis, but actually that doesn't matter. The statement shouldn't have been made.
“To me, the more important and the most important matter at the time was the correct reporting of the issue.
“Now, I accept, having heard from the young person in question and how that landed with them, that actually that statement shouldn't have been made. And I acknowledge that I've apologised.”
Immigration
On the subject of immigration, Ms McDonald said she did not want to see people living in tents. “I do not believe that the Government have handled any of these matters correctly at all. I am mindful that when a government takes a decision and when government changes, and you come in very often, you can't set the clock back to zero. But what I will say is that on our watch, the State will take the lead in terms of provision of publicly funded accommodation for international protection applicants.
“What I am saying is if Sinn Féin leads the next government, we will affect a sea change in how these things are managed. We will take up the reigns at the point in real time that we are in and we will do our very, very best as quickly as possible to ensure that these measures are managed correctly.”
Ms McDonald added that she did not want to see any community with “their backs up” as was happening in Athlone “because something has been mismanaged".
“And if we're in government next week, unfortunately, as much as you would like to, you can't entirely wipe the slate clean overnight and undo every bad decision of a bad government. But what you can do from that starting point is begin the process of what I would describe as a reset to ensure we have a system that operates on the basis of equality, dignity, fairness, that we deal with people and the system deals with the people efficiently and that we recognise.
"And in a system where two thirds of applications for international protection don't succeed, the system is so slow, it's taking years to get a decision. It's unfair on everybody concerned. And the national effect of the shambolic approach of the outgoing government is people in tents, in fields and on our canal.”
RTÉ Gaza coverage
On the issue of Sinn Féin’s call for an independent review of RTÉ’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza, Ms McDonald said she was “a bit taken aback” at the “defensive note” that had been struck on the topic.
“This is to be an independent review. Independent means independent of politics. It's proposed to be a peer review of your journalistic peers and human rights experts. It's similar to an exercise undertaken by the BBC, where in terms of migration policy and policy, where they did it without any hullabaloo.”
Ms McDonald also defended her attendance at the funerals of former IRA members.
She said she attended because she believed in respect for the dead.
“And can I respectfully say to you, whatever people's perspectives are, in the past or the present, I think trying to use funerals and people's human goodbyes as a mechanism to score political points is cheap.”
