Gerry Adams MP TD?

Gerry Adams has announced that he intends to move his base of operations fro the North of Ireland to the South.

In Sunday’s Observer it was reported that he will seek election to the Dail in the Louth constituency at the next general election.

Adams will step down as an MLA (a member of the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly) he plans to retain his Westminster seat even though he does not attend the House of Commons.

Adams said: "As leader of the only all-Ireland party with an all-island mandate, I have a choice to make whether to stay in West Belfast, a place that I love, or to seek a mandate in another constituency in the south.

"West Belfast is my home. It is where Colette and our family are and where I live. But after thoughtful consideration, and with the support of colleagues, I have decided to put my name forward for Louth. If elected for this constituency I will work and stay here and travel home when possible."

The party has a seat in the Louth constituency but but the current TD, Arthur Morgan, announced he would be stepping down at the next election to concentrate on his business.

However, there is no guarantee that Adams would retain the seat or find himself in a multi-party coalition government. In the most recent Irish general election Adams performed disastrously in a live leaders' debate on RTE television in which he was unable to answer questions on economic policies in the republic.


For what it’s worth I would not welcome Adams’s move to the politics of the Republic (but then I don’t have a vote in the Dail elections). It is not only because of my extreme dislike of Sinn Fein (to be fair I also dislike the DUP with a passion too) the man has become rather a non-entity since the peace process in the 90s


Adams has had the chance to transform himself from the talking head of a terrorist group to an able politician. In my view he has failed. Martin McGuinness on the other hand has been rather a revelation. Much as I dislike him personally McGuinness has shown himself to be quite an able politician. While I would rather not have seen him and Paisley holding the reins of power in Northern Ireland their working relationship was a pleasant surprise.

There will be an election in Ireland next year or in 2012 at the latest. While it it likely that Fianna Fail may face a decimation akin to that meted out on the Tories in 1997, there is little prospect of Sinn Fein being invited to join the next government. They may well increase their representation but as it stands the biggest winner (if not the outright winner) looks to be the Labour Party. A Fine Gael/Labour coalition looks to be the likeliest outcome. This time Labour will probably have a far bigger role in the coalition than it has in the past.

As for Adams he will be a little fish in a rather bigger pond if elected.