The Sinn Féin leader says his party will not go into power after the next election, unless it is the biggest party in a coalition.

Gerry Adams says the party “will not do what Labour did” by serving as the junior partner in a coalition and “hitching ourselves as a minority party” to a senior partner. Adams said to go into power as a junior coalition partner with a conservative senior partner “would just destroy what we’d worked for.”

However he says discussions of potential coalitions can wait until after the votes have been cast.

“Whether we would have the strength to negotiate out a programme for govt - which would be anti-austerity, which would be pro-united Ireland and which would be pro-public services – (is) in the hands of the people,” he said.