‘Too early’: Charlie McConalogue side-steps Fianna Fáil-Sinn Féin coalition question

Minister Charlie McConalogue says he believes that the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Green Party coalition is ‘working well’ - and insists it’s ‘too early’ to discuss any possible future partnership with Sinn Féin.

McConalogue, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, was pressed on the possibilities during a panel discussion, Ireland - The Future? at the MacGill Summer School on Friday night in Glenties.

The Donegal TD side-stepped directly answering the question, posed by former RTÉ journalist Tommie Gorman.

“It’s too early to discuss that, first of all,” McConalogue said. “It will be up to the public to decide what the situation is, what the outcome of the next election is and what the strengths of the various parties are.

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“I have been elected three times now to the Dáil. The first one (2011) was the easiest because you were straight into opposition. In 2016, it was very challenging, whereby my party did what was necessary to put a government together that would deal with the challenges of the day.

“Last time around (2020), after the election, we hoped and campaigned to be in a different position.”

The coalition agreement saw Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin as Taoiseach from June 2020-December 2022, when Leo Varadkar, his Fine Gael counterpart, take office.

The brokering of a pact involving Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael was a historic first in Ireland, joining for the first time two parties who took opposite sides in the civil war. 

McConalogue said: “We made the unprecedented decision to go in with Fine Gael. I believe it is working well in terms of addressing the challenges that are there - and there are some big challenges.

“We are making significant progress and we have to drive on with that. I do think the current government is addressing the challenges very well. Right now, we are knee deep in relation to making progress.”

Last December, Varadkar said he would resign from Fine Gael before leading the party into a Coalition Government with Sinn Féin.

Pushed as to whether or not he would rule out attempting to form a government with Sinn Féin, McConalogue said: “I think, ultimately, it will be the public who will decide.

“Last time around, a government had to be formed. There were two key choices from a Fianna Fáil  perspective - whether to go in with Fine Gael or Sinn Féin as the major other party. In terms of policy platform, we made a very clear decision to form the current government. I wouldn’t be pre-determining the approach to that.”

Sinn Féin TD Rose Conway-Walsh, who was on the panel said her party hopes to lead the next government.

Deputy Conway-Walsh said: “We do want to be in government and we do want to lead the government. For now, people see us as the people who will change things in the way they want to. We will talk to anybody. We will talk to all parties. Our preference is a government of the left. We have been strangled by Civil War politics, but people are no longer afraid.”

DUP MLA Emma Little-Pengelly and SDLP MP Claire Hanna were also part of Friday’s discussion at the Highlands Hotel in Glenties.

McConalogue, now Fianna Fáil’s only TD in Donegal, told the audience that the ongoing political uncertainty in Northern Ireland made a ‘shared island’ approach ‘a significantly more challenging task’.

“It is deeply disappointing that this is 18 months after the people of Northern Ireland voted in a democratic election,” McConalogue said. “`this is happening at a moment when Northern Ireland is facing unprecedented and acute budgetary challenges.”

He said the Irish government hoped to approach the next 25 years ‘with the same sense of vision, ambition and principle that founded the Good Friday Agreement’.

McConalogue said: “There is still much that we can do to make sure we get the most out of the Good Friday Agreement and to make sure we all benefit from what it made possible. At its heart, it is a framework partnership within Northern Ireland, a partnership north and south and a partnership east and west.

“The government wants to see this partnership flourish in all of its dimensions. A brighter future means all off us working together.”

The Good Friday Agreement, he said, has ‘helped unlock the economic dividends of peace and has transformed Northern Ireland into an ever more attractive place to live, visit and do business’.

McConalogue believes that the shared strengths will be central, such as the world leading tourism, the strong performance of the island’s screen industry and the ability to attract foreign direct investment.

He said: “The goal for the future is to create a more connected, sustainable and prosperous island, which understands itself better for the benefit of all of its communities.”