Fionnán Sheahan

And Matt Carthy, I thought quite notably, made effectively an open apology to members of the party saying, we messed up on immigration.

We didn't hammer the government.

We didn't basically go hardline enough or say it should be stern enough.

So we went along to Wynne's Hotel on Abbey Street on Tuesday evening for Janice Boylan's launch.

And I asked her and I said, what do you make of Gerry Hutch's remarks?

And she said, we have our position on immigration and migration policy, that it needs to be a firm, fair, enforced system.

And I said, so you're not condemning the remarks?

And it prompted her to say, then, and only then.

his comments were out of order in my view.

We then put the same question to Mary Lou who was standing beside her and she made no real remarks about Gerry Hutch, went on quite a tangent about people on the doors are saying this to us around immigration that needs to be fair and enforced.

There is a danger here as well for Sinn Féin because there is a sense I'm picking up

And I think there's an acknowledgement between Gerry Hutch and Sinn Féin of transfers here and where they're going to pick up.

So if Sinn Féin were seen to go too far to the left with Greens and Labour, it may alienate some voters.

And while they couldn't obviously jump into bed with Gerry Hutch, at least that's my snap analysis of it.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think just more generally, I think just on the by-elections issue,

I don't get the sense they've kind of sparked yet.

You know, I don't think... Yeah, you've got a whole two weeks to go anyway.

A whole two weeks to go, and like a general election, if it's four weeks, it's the last two weeks, rubber hits the road.

You know, it might not be until a week or two, ten days before we really get into this.