SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams admitted yesterday he was not yet fully briefed on local issues in the Louth constituency in which he plans to contest the next general election.
Speaking in Drogheda, he said he could not be expected to know everything at this point.
“I will learn all of that, I will be briefed up on all of that. I could tell you how the grass grows in west Belfast and if I didn’t know, I know people who do know,” he said.
Mr Adams said at the weekend he would seek the Sinn Féin nomination in the constituency, following the announcement by the party’s sitting TD Arthur Morgan that he would not seek re-election.
The party president denied yesterday he had been parachuted in over the head of the expected candidate, Cllr Tomás Sharkey.
He said the idea he should stand for the Dáil in Louth had come from within the constituency.
Mr Sharkey was the party’s candidate for Ireland East in last year’s European elections and was believed to be the next general election candidate in waiting.
Mr Adams said yesterday he had the support of both Mr Sharkey and Mr Morgan and they joined him as he walked through Drogheda and Dundalk.
“I am a team player [and] I have built teams wherever I go . . . The idea for me to stand . . . came from within the constituency. If you elbow yourself in somewhere you create havoc and it doesn’t help the party.” He said he had “huge admiration and respect for Tomás and I see him as one of our up and coming leaders”.