Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, says that the introduction of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland is inevitable.

Despite Stormont upholding Northern Ireland’s ban on same-sex marriage on four separate occasions, the Sinn Fein leader says that he expects the country will follow the rest of the British Isles in introducing marriage equality in the future.

“I’m not so sure about a referendum, and certainly very few people tonight favoured a referendum,” he said after appearing at the annual Pride Talks Back event in Belfast on Monday.

“But we need to use all the tools, and what won the referendum in the south was ordinary people, mammies and daddies and grannies, uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters, saying I have a family member who is gay. Because we all know people who are gay in our own families and our own political parties and our own communities and work.”

Gerry Adams continued, “Let’s remember that a lot of people voted against marriage equality, but it’s now going to become the law and we need the same thing to happen here.”

“It’s when you personalise it like that, I mean I was heavily involved in that campaign, it was the most cheerful, hopeful, inoffensive campaign you could have ever have been involved in and the outcome was joyous.”

Last month, the first two same-sex couples to enter civil partnerships in the UK won legal permission to challenge the ban on same sex marriage in Northern Ireland.

Their challenge is based on claims that the current law discriminates against same-sex couples and breaches entitlements to family life and marriage under the European Convention on Human Rights.