ARLENE Foster “has not shown the leadership skills that are required”, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has said. 
He insisted the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) furore was only one of many issues his party needed to be resolved before re-entering government with the DUP.
The republicans want the DUP to give ground in relation to issues such as the Irish language and the ongoing ban on same-sex marriage.
Mrs. Foster, in turn, said on Tuesday that her party wanted to review the fundamental structures of Stormont’s mandatory coalition arrangements, with a view to moving to voluntary coalition government. 
In an interview with The Impartial Reporter yesterday (Wednesday), Mr. Adams was asked if Sinn Fein was simply using RHI as a leverage to damage unionism and Mrs. Foster’s leadership. 
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Mr. Adams. “That scandal damages the political institutions. Let’s recap the issue here: half a billion pounds sterling of the public’s money, that will come out of the pockets of unionist taxpayers as well as everybody else.”
“It’s a straight issue of governance,” he said. 
Mr. Adams said his party “opposes direct rule” and is “totally bedded and wedded” to the Good Friday Agreement. 
“The problem by and large is the fairness and equality elements of that agreement were set to one side by our partner in government, then RHI are other issues became a tipping point for the current difficulties.
“Our focus will be on getting back into power sharing arrangements, direct rule is not acceptable. I think the call by the leader of the SDLP for the British and Irish governments to govern the place is conceding too much at this point. It is indicative of the way the SDLP has flipped flopped on all of this,” he said. 
As for Mrs. Foster, he replied: “The fact is there is a perception out there that she has not shown the leadership skills that are required. It is very straight forward: the position of first and deputy first minister is a co-equal Siamese twin type arrangement. She’s not a prime minister. She is bound to ensure and uphold the integrity of that office, she didn’t do so.”
Mr. Adams’ colleague Sean Lynch hit out at the “bigotry” and “disrespect” he said has been shown by the DUP in the Assembly. 
“I’ve seen my colleague Raymond McCartney every time he got up to speak someone shouting over to him ‘you’re a failed hunger striker’. That’s not the way you should be treating people.”
“If unionists want power they need to share it on an equal basis,” he said.
SDLP MLA Richie McPhillips said: “For the last ten years, DUP arrogance has only been strengthened by Sinn Féin weakness. It is not good enough that it has taken Sinn Féin a decade to end their policy of appeasement that has only emboldened the DUP.”
“As the Executive play political chicken, there are still no plans for Brexit, no budget for our public services, and no plan to recover the £500million RHI overspend,” he said. 
UUP MLA Rosemary Barton said it is her party’s position that an independent public inquiry, chaired by a judicial figure proposed by the Lord Chief Justice, is the “only actual prospect of getting answers” to the very many questions surrounding RHI.