Not everyone critical of government immigration policy is racist, says ...

Speaking to The Indo Daily podcast, Ms McDonald said the Government is hiding behind a claim that people want to veto who lives beside them because it has not worked with communities on locations for accommodation centres for asylum-seekers.

“I think the Government kind of used this ‘people want to veto’ line, to kind of hide behind it because they hadn’t gone in and they hadn’t done the work to actually go and talk to people in communities,” Ms McDonald said.

“We need to be careful not to slip into an analysis that we all went to bed one night grand, and we woke up the following day and the entire country was racist. That didn’t happen.”

The Sinn Féin leader also criticised anti-immigration politicians who wave the Tricolour while also appearing at protests with loyalists.

“If you want to know what the Irish cause is about, read the 1916 Proclamation: nowhere in that proclamation is there valued anything other than equality, inclusion, decency, fairness,” Ms McDonald said. “That’s what the Tricolour is about.

“It’s a proud flag that’s about equality and freedom and decency, not the kind of hate-filled nonsense and macho bravado, sticking your chest out. That doesn’t cut any cloth with me.”

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It has been a challenging few weeks for Sinn Féin in the lead-up to the general election with multiple controversies plaguing the party, including the resignation of TD Brian Stanley.

Ms McDonald said it would be ­“difficult” for Mr Stanley to return to the party and said he was “the author of his own misfortune”.

“As my mother would say, ‘he made his own bed, and he may lie on it’. He was the author of his own misfortune. I’m very serious about this,” Ms McDonald said.

She added that Mr Stanley not taking responsibility for his actions was something she was taken aback by.

“It’s one thing to get things wrong and to get yourself into a pickle,” Ms McDonald said.

“It’s a whole other situation when you face the consequences of that and you don’t man up and take responsibility for your own actions, and you start pointing at other people and blaming other people for your own conduct.

“In the whole scenario, that’s the thing. I think it’s that I was very disappointed in and very taken aback at. I don’t think that’s good form.”

Ms McDonald added that she doesn’t think former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has the “remotest interest” in being the President of Ireland.

While the country will go to the polls this Friday to elect the next government, a Presidential election will take place next year.

“I think at this stage, Gerry is doing a lot of writing. He has his own ­podcast. So no, I don’t see him taking that, going that route. If it is in his mind, he certainly hasn’t shared it with me yet,” Ms McDonald said.

On the controversial election bid by criminal Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch, Ms McDonald said the gang war between the Hutch organised crime group and Kinahan cartel “wasn’t glamorous” and was “not funny”, and insisted she would not be working with him if he was elected.

“I have absolutely no desire to know him, and I am sure he has no desire to know me and that’s just hunky dory for me,” she said.