Mary Lou McDonald has indicated that she may stop attending IRA commemorations if she is elected Taoiseach.
She said she would be a “Taoiseach for all” and not attend events that would cause offence.
The Sinn Féin leader was speaking in response to a question surrounding the controversy caused by party councillor, John Finucane, attending an event to commemorate ‘South Armagh Volunteers’ over the weekend.
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Mr Finucane’s father was the famous human rights lawyer, Pat Finucane, who was brutally murdered in front of his family, including a young John, by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989.
Ms McDonald told reporters in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin on Monday afternoon: “If I were to be Taoiseach, if I had the privilege of leading a government, I will be a Taoiseach for everybody.
“And I would act in a way to foster respect, reconciliation and understanding and never in a partisan way to give offence.”
Ms McDonald’s comments suggest that the party leader is softening her party’s hard Republican stance in preparation for entering government here after the next election.
This was further bolstered when Ms McDonald also said that she would consider voting for a resolution to sanction the Special Criminal Court.
She said: “I would like for the review to be published without further delay, and we have options available to us as to how we might vote then.”
This would be the first time ever Sinn Féin would vote for the special Dail resolution that allows the controversial court to continue.
The non-jury court is usually used in gangland criminal cases, but it was often used in the past to try terrorists from the IRA.
Sinn Féin has abstained from the annual Dail vote in recent years - they used to always vote against - pending a report on the reform of the court being published.
The report has been completed, but not yet published by the Government.
Ms McDonald was pressed about the criticisms of party MP John Finucane who spoke at the South Armagh event in commemoration of past IRA members on Sunday afternoon.
She said: “John Finucane’s father was shot dead in front of him, his siblings and his mother at their kitchen table when he was a child.
“I think if anybody knows about the need to be respectful, compassionate and inclusive in our remembrance, I would respectfully suggest that it's somebody like John Finucane and I think we need to not play politics with this.
“I am quite willing, and I just said, openly, that those who had a different experience, Republicans and Loyalists, that they are allowed to remember too and I respect their right to do so.
“So I think we need to dial down the kind of political opportunism around this and we need to be just honest and real with each other.
“Because whatever happened in the past, the job for all of us now is to take care of what happens in the present and in the future.
“Wherever we come from in the past, I absolutely believe that we can work together and build a future together.”
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