THE DUP should not pick "sham fights" with republicans because it would imperil efforts to attract business investment, Sinn Féin has warned.
Gerry Adams issued the warning at a commemoration at west Belfast's Milltown Cemetery yesterday to mark the deaths of three IRA members killed in Gibraltar 20 years ago and those who died when their funerals were attacked by Michael Stone.
The DUP has continued to step up its rhetoric against Sinn Féin with party leader the Rev Ian Paisley claiming his legacy was that he had "smashed Sinn Féin".
His likely successor, DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson, has said he wants to move away from the mandatory coalition with Sinn Féin towards "a far more normal democracy", and to create a more streamlined Stormont.
He told the Sunday Times: "There will have to be a progression towards reducing the scale of political bureaucracy. That means reducing the number of departments and the number of MLAs."
Mr Adams warned the DUP against picking "sham and phoney fights with Sinn Féin". Referring to unionist and SDLP opposition to the use of Stormont's Long Gallery for a memorial for one of the Gibraltar three. he said: "Unionists and the SDLP voted to ban our use of the Long Gallery. . . But republicans have been banned and censored and excluded before. Banned as a political party; banned from our city centre; banned from the airwaves; banned and demonised and vilified, and we came through it all."