Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has claimed that Taoiseach Enda Kenny accepts partition and believes that the Irish sovereign nation stops at the border.

In a speech at a Sinn Féin event celebrating the 1916 Rising, Mr Adams compared 1916 with the hunger strikes of the 1980s as events that defined a generation.

However, he said partition had endured even though it had never served Irish national interests or the public good and was now accepted by an establishment that wanted to maintain the status quo.

The Sinn Féin leader said the centenary year presented an opportunity for change, claiming James Connolly would be calling for Labour and Fine Gael to be put out of office.

Mr Adams told his audience that the Government parties were trying to present the result of the election as a foregone conclusion and Mr Kenny as what he called the "inevitable" Taoiseach.