“We believe better is possible… Until the day comes when ordinary people have a government that is unapologetically on your side, we will work morning, noon & night to show you that you have an Opposition that is.”
Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald addressed the party’s Return of the Dáil Think-In, held in Dún Laoghaire on September 8th – you can read her remarks in full below.
A chairde,
Táimid bailithe i mBaile Átha Cliath roimh thús théarma nua na Dála. Táimid ar bís le tabhairt faoin obair. Táimid réidh seasamh ar son gnáthdhaoine, an rialtas teipthe seo a chur faoi bhrú, agus polaitíocht na poblachta—polaitíocht Aontais na hÉireann—a chur chun cinn. Tá todhchaí níos fearr dár dtír agus dár muintir ag teastáil uainn. Is é seo an saghas pholaitíocht a chuirfimid chun tosaigh inár bhfreagra ar an mBúiséid, le linn an Toghcháin Uachtaráin agus ar fud théarma an Oireachtais. Cuirfimid oibrithe, teaghlaigh agus an phobail chun chinn agus sinn i mbun oibre, agus oibreoimid gan stad chun todhchaí níos fearr a bhaint amach do chách.
Friends, we meet as we prepare for what will be an extremely busy and important political term. On Wednesday week, the Dáil will return, closely followed by the Budget, and then the Presidential Election. Sinn Féin enters this new Dáil term with clear focus. We will go toe-to-toe with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Working with the combined Opposition, we will continue to fight the corner of ordinary people and hold this Government to account for their failures and their poor choices. We will cut them no slack. We will not accept any excuses or spin.
Remember this is a government that cynically misled the public during the last election, provided false information to maintain their grasp on power, made big promises they had no intention of ever keeping. The means test for carers remains in place. Childcare fees are still through the roof. Student fees have been increased, not reduced. Nine months on from the General Election, we’re dealing with a government that has delivered close to nothing. In the middle of a cost of living crisis they are choosing to increase prices right across the board for hardpressed households. The truth is that since Micheál Martin and Simon Harris brokered their grubby deal with Michael Lowry, it’s been more of the same – more crisis, more waste of public money, more excuses, more failure.
We believe better is possible. And until the day comes when ordinary people have a government that is unapologetically on your side, we will work morning, noon and night to show you that you have an Opposition that is.
Cost of Living
Ordinary households are under huge pressure just to get by. The Budget must be about ending the rip off, getting prices under control and supporting workers and families. People are hit by increases in living costs that are out of control. Its grocery prices, rents, petrol and diesel prices, its insurance. Its childcare, utilities, and massive electricity, gas and home heating oil bills. All sky-high, all going up and up.
But Micheál Martin and Simon Harris are not listening. They dig-in and refuse to include a cost of living package in the Budget In fact, they choose to make life even harder by increasing the price of petrol and diesel, the Local Property Tax, student fees, and they fail to intervene to get under control the runaway costs of groceries, health insurance and childcare. It’s scandalous that they will withdraw the energy credits that so many households rely on and say “tough! You’re on your own”.
Sinn Féin is demanding three energy credits to the value of €450 as part of a wider cost of living package aimed at making life affordable. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael constantly brag about the huge budgetary surplus, about how wealthy the State is, yet they repeatedly short-change ordinary working households. This can’t go on. The Budget must be about using that wealth to make life affordable for ordinary people, investing in our infrastructure, and building a better future.
Housing
The housing crisis was caused by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Not only are they incapable of solving it, they’re making it worse. They care about wealthy property funds, vultures and big corporate landlords, not the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who struggle to find and keep an affordable home. An average rent of €2,055 is not normal. Needing an income of €100,000 to buy a starter home is not normal. More than 16,000 people homeless, including more than 5000 children is not normal.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael say housing can’t be solved overnight when they’ve had over a decade. But this can be sorted. There are things they could do immediately that would start to make things better. They could end their sweetheart tax breaks for property funds and vultures, ban rent increases for three years, and radically overhaul the Voids Return Scheme to get thousands of boarded-up Council homes back into use. Workers should be able to buy a house. Everyone must have a roof over their head, a place to call home, and be able to live securely and happily in a community. We will not rest until that future is achieved.
Health
We’ve had fourteen years of Fine Gael in government, nearly a decade of the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil partnership and where are we? Our health system is on its knees. Permanently overcrowded hospitals. A&Es under huge daily pressure. A year-round trolley crisis. Hundreds of thousands on treating waiting lists. People struggling to get a GP or dentist appointment. A Minister for Health with no plan to deliver the change the health service needs, now attempting to pass the buck for the fiasco surrounding the children’s hospital. Billions in public money, no opening date, not one child treated and Minister MacNeill’s response is, “ask BAM”. You could not make it up.
However, nothing speaks more loudly to government failure than the shameful treatment of children with scoliosis and spina bifida. Children left to wait and deteriorate, left to wait in agony for the operations that would change their lives. Harvey Morrison Sherratt died on July 29th. He was nine years old. He was one child who was made to wait too long. Harvey was born in 2016, the same year that Simon Harris was appointed Minister for Health. In 2017, when Harvey was just one year old, his parents were told that his ribs were crushing his lungs. That same year, the Tánaiste promised that no child would wait more than four months for spinal surgery. That promise has been broken again and again.
We again express our love and solidarity to Harvey’s heartbroken parents, Gillian and Stephen, for the loss of their beautiful son. And we tell them – and all the parents of children waiting for the treatment they urgently need – that we are in this with you. We will never stop fighting with you and for you. We look forward to hearing from Harvey’s father, Stephen who will join us later today. We stand too with parents challenging a government that openly breaks the law and leaves children with disabilities and autism waiting for their assessment of needs and access to vital services. Cara Darmody, the fifteen year old powerhouse who has taken on the government for this failure of these children will also join us today.
We have the backs of parents of children with special needs campaigning for school places and to uphold their children’s right to an education. We are delighted to have with us from Dungarvan the formidable Rebecca Meehan who relentlessly fights for the right to a school place for her son, Jay, and for countless other children. Our politics is about people, about challenging a broken system and fixing it, about giving hope that better is not only possible but essential, and we won’t give up until children, parents and families receive from the government and the state the recognition, respect and services to which they are entitled.
The Presidential Election
On the 24 of October, the people of Ireland will elect our new President. Michael D. Higgins has been a President for the people. A class act. We extend our gratitude to him and his wife, Sabina for all of their service. We are in the final stages of deciding our approach to this election. We will decide either to run a Sinn Féin candidate or to throw our weight behind another candidate.
One thing I can state is that I will not contest for the role of President. The role of Uachtarán na hÉireann is so important to our country and our people. I thought long and hard about it but I believe my best position is in the Dáil, taking on this Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Lowry coalition, leading the fight back, and building to the day when we finally deliver a new government for working people. It’s really important that whoever enters the Áras after the election is someone who speaks to a vision for Ireland’s future. A President who upholds Ireland’s place in the world and our proud tradition of military neutrality, who speaks up for a better future for our young people, for a society of inclusion and equality for citizens with disabilities and the marginalised, for an Ireland where nobody is left out or left behind.
Building towards a United Ireland and preparing for constitutional change must be a prominent discussion in this Presidential election. Partition is on borrowed time. The momentum for reunification is growing by the day. Inch by inch, we are getting closer to a United Ireland. I believe that we will have unity referendums by the end of this decade. So, the next Uachtarán na hÉireann must be a champion and a leader for Irish Unity in our time. This is an opportunity to elect a President for an Ireland of equality, unity, fairness, compassion, and economic justice.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have controlled government for over a century. They have made a mess of the things that really matter to people – housing, health, cost of living, the aspirations of so many young people. They should not be rewarded for these failures with the Presidency. It is the job of everyone who believes in a better Ireland to work to get Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael out of government and to keep them out of the Áras.
Gaza and Palestine
Friends, we never forget the people of Palestine and Gaza. People who yearn for peace, justice, and freedom. We continue to raise our voices for an end to the genocide, an end to the occupation, and for Palestinian freedom. We send our solidarity to those aboard the boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla as they sail to confront Israel’s siege of Gaza, including our Sinn Féin comrades Senator Chris Andrews, Lynn Boylan MEP and Teachta Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh. The mission of the flotilla is a mission of humanity and of hope, a lifeline of aid and mercy for Gaza. The world is watching. Any aggression against this humanitarian voyage would constitute a grave violation of international law. Let the flotilla through. Lift the blockade. Let the aid in.
In their tens of thousands, men, women, and children are slaughtered and forcibly starved. In Gaza, a child is being killed every hour. So, words of condemnation and symbolic acts are not enough. Israel must be held to account by those with the power to do so, and the Irish government must lead the charge within the European Union for sanctions to be imposed. On the floor of the Dáil, in the Seanad and on the streets, we will continue to call-out Israel for its brutal war crimes, we will do everything to champion human rights and international law, and we will ensure that the Palestinian people know that even in the darkest of days they are never, ever alone.
Conclusion
A chairde, every Oireachtas term is an opportunity to advance republican politics and our vision for Ireland – reunification, the achievement of a thirty-two county republic, a society where workers and families come first. This is the future that inspires us, motivates us, and compels us to work even harder than ever before. So, we will give it our all in standing-up for ordinary people, and hold this failed government to account every step of the way. We will not waste a single second in championing all those who depend on us, for all those who believe that a better future is possible. Let’s get the job done for them.
- Mary Lou McDonald is President of Sinn Féin and a TD for Dublin Central- you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and TikTok.
- This speech was originally published on Sinn Féin’s website on 8/9/2025.
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