SINN FÉIN LEADER Gerry Adams has dismissed comments by Micheál Martin ruling out a coalition with Sinn Féin as ‘presumptuous’.

Adams distanced his party from coalition with any conservative party, including Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. He made the comments after Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said he was against the party ever going into coalition with Sinn Féin.

Backbench FF TD Éamon Ó Cuív had suggested that SF would be “natural coalition partners” for FF given their shared republican ideology. However Martin said he disagreed with his party colleague and that he didn’t see SF as a republican party “in the true meaning of the term”.

“It would be presumptuous of anyone to think that Sinn Féin is interested in a coalition involving any of the conservative parties who are at one in their failed approach to the problems that currently face the Irish people,” said Adams.

The issue simply doesn’t arise. We are several years away from a general election and what Sinn Féin is focused on now is building support for an alternative approach to addressing the economic crisis and as part of that securing a No vote to the Austerity Treaty.

Adams said Fianna Fáil was ‘speaking with two voices’ on the issue given the contradictory statements from Ó Cuív and Martin.

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