If working with Sinn Féin is good enough for David Trimble, then it should be good enough for political parties in this State, the Sinn Féin leader, Mr Gerry Adams, said yesterday.
He said he had no doubt that the main political parties would try to make a deal if Sinn Féin won a mandate and the party's support was needed to form a government.
Mr Adams said Sinn Féin had ongoing contact with governments and he pointed out that he had spoken to the Taoiseach's Department on the previous day about street disturbances in east Belfast.
"The parties who have formed governments here over the last 10 years have all dealt with Sinn Féin and have trusted us in dealing with the huge issue of developing a peace process on this island," Mr Adams said.
He said Sinn Féin would only support a taoiseach-to-be if he "was prepared to spread the wealth and make transparent, strategic commitments about health services, about housing, about the peace process, about a strategy for Irish unity".
"We will obviously - if we get the mandate - be doing business, and it will be on the basis of policies, not on the basis of personalities or the thirst for power."
Mr Adams said Sinn Féin was only interested in getting votes "in so far as that enables us to be part of an alternative to the conservatism, or the shades of conservatism, that I think mark out the other establishment parties from ourselves".
"We're about a different kind of politics, we are about equality, we're about proper services and utilities and we are about having a people-centred democracy right across the entire island."
Responding to yesterday's prison release of UFF leader Johnny Adair, Mr Adams said it was too easy to single out Adair as a danger to the peace process.
"It is the people in the mohair suits who are every bit as sectarian, it is the people in the police service, it is the people in the intelligence agencies who are the dangerous ones," Mr Adams said.
He said he hoped the release of Adair from Maghaberry prison would not increase street disturbances in parts of east and north Belfast. "But there have been lots of Johnny Adairs in the past. It is the system and the conditions which need to be changed."
A UFF spokesman said Adair would act as "a positive force" in calming loyalist communities involved in inter-communal violence.
In response to this, Mr Adams said: "Let's see action beyond the rhetoric."
