The Northern Assembly election has snapped into action with DUP leader Arlene Foster telling Sinn Féin that there was no chance of its demand for an Irish language act being accepted.
Ms Foster also warned unionists that if they did not rally behind the DUP, Sinn Féin could win the most seats and therefore be entitled to take the First Minister post after polling day on March 2nd.
One of the key issues Sinn Féin is pushing for in this election is new Irish language legislation, but the DUP leader insisted it would not happen when launching her party’s election campaign in Lurgan, Co Armagh, on Monday.
“I will never accede to an Irish language Act,” she said. She added more people in Northern Ireland spoke Polish than Irish. “Maybe we should have a Polish language Act as well?” she asked.
“If you feed a crocodile it will keep coming back and looking for more,” she added.
It prompted a terse response from Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams when he later introduced his election candidates at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. “See you later, alligator,” he said.
Unionist bogeyman
Despite this withering response, Ms Foster focused on presenting Mr Adams as the unionist bogeyman for this election at her campaign launch.
She suggested that, but for the illness of former deputy first minister Martin McGuinness, the crisis over the renewable heat incentive (RHI) scheme need not have led to the collapse of Stormont.
Ms Foster said the “cash for ash” crisis, which could result in an overspend of up to £490 million over the next 19 years, “was not the cause but became the excuse to call this election”.
She accused Mr Adams in his “valedictory” period as leader of seizing this opportunity to push a wider united Ireland republican agenda rather than the interests of the people of Northern Ireland.
She also claimed that Sinn Féin’s new Northern Ireland leader Michelle O’Neill was acting under the diktat of Mr Adams.
“Michelle O’Neill was installed by Gerry Adams and she will be instructed by Gerry Adams,” said Ms Foster.
The DUP leader focused on Mr Adams a number of times in her speech and repeated that Ms O’Neill was “handpicked” to do his bidding.
“So let’s be clear, at this election Gerry Adams is no longer in the shadows, he is front and centre of Sinn Féin’s campaign. He is their leader and hoping for the opportunity to implement his radical agenda for Northern Ireland,” she said.
The DUP leader said “nobody feels worse” about RHI than she did, that “mistakes were made”, that “things could have been handled better”, but that she “did nothing wrong”.
Exonerate
She was confident the public inquiry into the controversy announced last month by Sinn Féin Minister for Finance Máirtín Ó Muilleoir would exonerate her and her party of any wrongdoing. “My name will be entirely cleared and the name of this party will be cleared as well,” she said.
Ms O’Neill refused to respond to the claim that she was working to Mr Adams’s agenda. “We are not interested in negativity,” she said.
The SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, when launching his party’s election campaign, said that despite their differences he and his party could work with the Ulster Unionist Party and its leader Mike Nesbitt “to make Northern Ireland work”.
“This place only works if nationalism and unionism works together,” he said. “We stand by that vision of an Ireland in which different traditions can live and work and even argue with safety and security. I would remind those who continue to criticise that it’s a vision that Wolfe Tone came up with a good name for many years ago: it’s called Irish republicanism.”
People Before Profit, which has seven candidates standing in six constituencies, accused Sinn Féin of moving into the centre ground and leaving its working-class base exposed.
Its Foyle candidate, outgoing MLA Eamonn McCann, said his party was not specifically targeting Sinn Féin and appealed for DUP voters to join its “genuinely radical” alternative to the last DUP-Sinn Féin administration.
