SINN FÉIN TD David Cullinane has said he doesn’t “need anybody to define my politics” when pressed on his party’s left-wing credentials.
Opposition parties have questioned what they said was “a mixed message” from Sinn Féin after recent byelection results.
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said they “need to iron out what their position is” on several issues, while Labour leader Ivana Bacik said the party had “pivoted rightwards” on migration and climate.
Sinn Féin failed to win a seat in either of the Galway West or Dublin Central byelections, despite Dublin Central being the constituency of party leader Mary Lou McDonald, who has topped the poll there since 2016.
On the eighth count in Dublin Central, Sinn Féin received more than two-thirds of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch’s transferable vote.
Following the byelection, Bacik said she did not see Sinn Féin as a left-wing party and said her party had “significant policy differences with Sinn Féin”.
“They have pivoted rightwards, particularly on migration, and on climate, and indeed on their taxation policies,” she said.
Meanwhile, Cairns remarked that Sinn Féin is a left-wing party “at a crossroads”, highlighting its abstention on voting on the Social Democrats’ reproductive rights Bill in recent weeks.
Asked last Sunday whether Sinn Féin is a left-wing party, Cairns said: “In many respects they are and they say that they are, I think there are some issues that they need to iron out what their position is on them, but that’s a matter for them.”
Speaking on this afternoon’s The Week in Politics on RTÉ, the Social Democrats’ Jennifer Whitmore also pointed to the reproductive rights Bill it recently tabled in the Dáíl, which was defeated.
She said she was “disappointed” that Sinn Féin abstained, though she acknowledged it was a “complex” Bill.
When asked if this shows that Sinn Féin is “not as progressive as other left parties”, Cullinane said: “There’s lots of commentary at the moment about my party.
“I don’t need anybody to define my politics. I’m an Irish Republican. I come from a working-class constituency. We are the largest party of the working class by far.
“What I want is a government without Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and unlike others, I’m prepared to say that and work towards it to make it a reality.”
When asked about the transfers of Hutch to Sinn Féin, Cullinane said it’s not “straightforward”.
“The biggest movement I saw in the last 20 years that came from the working class was water charges.
“The Labour Party supported the water charges, the Green Party did, the Social Democrats weren’t even around.”
Whitmore meanwhile remarked that those who vote for the Social Democrats on “things like immigration or reproductive rights would find it very difficult to vote for some other parties”.
Cullinane replied that there is “nothing wrong with wanting a managed migration system”.
“We’re attacked all the time for saying that we have to manage the system, it has to be a rules-based system,” said Cullinane.
“If people are coming here and applying for asylum, they have to be treated fairly, human rights based, but it also has to be efficient, and it has to be enforced.
“I don’t know what the Social Democrats’ view on that is, in terms of managed migration.
“It’s not right-wing at all to say that we want a managed migration system and I actually think we’re doing an injustice to working-class communities and people who just want to see the system working more efficiently, because the vast majority of people are very fair-minded.”
Elsewhere, Fianna Fáil’s Charlie McConalogue was also on The Week in Politics and remarked that the exchange between Cullinane and Whitmore showed a “real lack of coherence in the opposition”.