Mary Lou McDonald has pledged to appoint a minister for Irish unity if Sinn Féin is in government after the Republic’s forthcoming general election.
Delivering her leader’s speech on Saturday evening at the party’s ard fheis in Athlone, she said it was necessary to have a “mature, respectful conversation about constitutional change”.
Mrs McDonald said it was time to prepare for unity and that the next administration in Dublin needed to commission a green paper on uniting Ireland and convene a citizens assembly, alongside a “minister for reunification at the Department of An Taoiseach”.
She said a new government should have a “clear-cut commitment to holding referendums”.
In an address that focused primarily on the south, where in the coming months Sinn Féin will contest a general election, she said the outcome of June’s European and local government in the Republic “didn’t match our expectations”.
However, north of the border in July, Mrs McDonald said her party “made history electing seven Sinn Féin MPs”.
She welcomed February’s restoration of the Stormont institutions after two years, describing Michelle O’Neill as the “first minister for all”.
The Sinn Féin leader said the executive’s recently agreed draft programme for government focused on “delivering improvements in people’s lives” and she called for the British government to “fund services, infrastructure, and progress”.
She said west Belfast’s Casement Park, which will no longer host Euro 2028 games, must be delivered.
“We seek an era of transformation, beyond Tory division and austerity,” she said of the new Downing Street administration.
Mrs McDonald paid tribute to the “courageous family of Pat Finucane”, who 34 years after the solicitor’s murder have secured a public inquiry.
“They must have truth and justice,” she said.
“So too must other families, like that of Seán Brown – we stand with them.”
She said Sinn Féin in government in the south would bring “the voices of ordinary people to the corridors of power, putting your needs on the cabinet table”.
“Give us that chance – because there is one certainty: workers and families cannot afford another five years of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil running the show.”
Mrs McDonald said Ireland stood with the Palestinian people and she called for immediate ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and “for an end to the genocide”.
She described the transportation of Israeli munitions through Irish airspace as “illegal and unacceptable” and called for an end to the “blocking” of the Occupied Territories Bill and the Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill.
“Palestine cries out for peace, for justice, for freedom, and Palestine will know that freedom come what may,” she said.
Addressing the recent escalation in violent protests, she said racism was “repulsive” and “must be faced down”.
Citing her party’s plan on international protection launched over the summer, she said Sinn Féin would “always stand up for what’s right and we will always stand up for communities”.
“Community, fairness, and common sense must be at the heart of how we manage immigration,” she said.
“The system must be resourced, applications dealt with quickly and fairly.”
She said International Protection Accommodation Services centres “must not be located in working class communities struggling to survive”.
Mrs McDonald said her party had a “plan to end the housing crisis” by build affordable housing.
“We will deliver the largest housing programme in the history of the state,” she said, pledging to build 300,000 homes.
Other key policy pledges for the south included affordable childcare, universal healthcare and the recruitment of 1,000 new Gardaí.
