Sinn Féin is running 218 candidates in the local elections for a total of 257 seats, with some candidates seeking election to both town and county councils.
The party currently has 121 seats held by 108 councillors.
Launching Sinn Féin's local election manifesto in Dublin today, party president Gerry Adams said he had always refused to make predictions about the number of seats his party would win in elections.
“We would certainly look to consolidate the number of seats that we have,” he said. “I would be hopeful we would make some gains.”
Cllr Daithi Doolan said local government reform should give real power to local authorities to raise finances. Dublin was 70 per cent dependent on rates and development levies, with 30 per cent coming from central government.
“We want to change that.,” he said. Sinn Féin supported a hotel bed tax based on a percentage of the overall hotel bill for tourists and other visitors to the city, the precise level to be set by the elected representatives.
Sinn Féin has also proposed that a proportion of the Value Added Tax raised on the sale of goods in Dublin be “ringfenced” and channelled back to the City Council.
Cllr Doolan said these measures would “provide extra and essential funding to this city, rather than being dependent on government handouts which are dwindling”.
Mr Doolan said in relation to Minister for the Environment John Gormley’s proposal for a directly-elected Mayor of Dublin: “But on its own, it’s irrelevant, what we really need, if you want real change rather than Gormley’s window-dressing, we want real power devolved to local authorities.
“We need to reform central government legislation and hand the power back to those people with a mandate in this city,” he said.
Asked he would be interested in the job he replied: “I’m busy enough being a city councillor. The party will review that situation, I’m sure we will be standing a candidate, of course.”
Asked to clarify Sinn Féin’s attitude to possible participation in government on this side of the Border at some future stage, the Sinn Féin president replied: “Post this election and post the General Election, whenever the Taoiseach calls it - or when he’s forced to call it - then we can see, given our mandate, how we can coalesce with people with a similar vision”.
Asked if he expected disillusioned Fianna Fáil voters would turn to Sinn Féin, rather than, say, Fine Gael, he replied: “I don’t know. I do know, in my gut, that a vote for Fine Gael for anyone who wants the social changes which are required is a wasted vote.
“Go back over a 30-year period and look at the number of times that Labour rescued Fine Gael. Look at the many times that Labour – and indeed the Greens are a perfect example of it – became the mudguard instead of the vanguard, of the bigger establishment parties.
“We’re appealing for votes right across the entire spectrum,” Mr Adams said.
Commenting on the dispute between the Sinn Féin Minister for Education in the North, Caitriona Ruane and the Republic’s Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe over the latter’s decision to withhold additional funding to expand the services at the autism centre in Middletown, Co Armagh, Mr Adams said the Government had “a moral responsibility” to provide funding to the Centre.
Meath County Councillor Joe Reilly said it was “a serious blow to the parents” and he added, “With the amount of money that’s involved, the Minister should be absolutely ashamed and return it to the Centre.”
