Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said First Minister Michelle O’Neill’s decision to boycott this year’s White House event to mark St Patrick’s Day was “opportunistic and somewhat cynical”.
Sinn Féin’s O’Neill did not travel to the US capital for the annual festivities, in protest against US President Donald Trump’s stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
But speaking to the NI’s Sunday Politics programme from Washington, the taoiseach (Irish PM) said that was the “wrong decision”.
A Sinn Féin spokesperson said the decision was not taken lightly, but “taken conscious of the responsibility each of us as individuals have to call out injustice”.
Martin has been in Washington this week to take part in St Patrick’s Day events with other politicians from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, including Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly.
On Wednesday, the taoiseach presented Trump with a bowl of shamrocks in the White House.
That followed a bilateral meeting between the two leaders, during which the president raised a “massive” trade imbalance with Ireland and accused the EU of treating the US “very badly”.
Martin said Sinn Féin’s boycott was “not in the best interest of the people of Northern Ireland or any the island of Ireland”.
“It’s a very wrong thing to do, and opportunistic and somewhat cynical,” he added.
A Sinn Féin spokesperson said: “We are all heartbroken as we witness the suffering of the Palestinian people and the recent comments of the US president around the mass expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza, is something we cannot ignore.”
Other political parties – the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and the Alliance Party – also ruled out attending events in Washington over the Trump administration’s stance on the war in Gaza.
You can watch the interview with Micheál Martin on Sunday Politics at 10:00 GMT on One NI & iPlayer.
