Keeping Ross happy has forced Fine Gael into a trade-off with its old enemy

FEW politicians, never mind ministers, despise Sinn Féin more than Charlie Flanagan. He doesn’t believe that the IRA has gone away and neither does he accept that Mary Lou McDonald’s party has completed its journey to being a truly democratic party.

He has long-standing personal and political suspicions of Sinn Féin.

That has fuelled many attacks on both the IRA and by default Sinn Féin over the years. So it must weigh heavy on the minister’s mind to now find himself in the middle of this unusual political situation.

The Fine Gael Government needs the support of Independent Alliance TD Shane Ross to stay afloat. In order to keep him satisfied it is radically reforming the way judges are appointed. It’s a red-line issue for the former stockbroker and journalist.

But Fianna Fáil, led on this issue by barrister Jim O’Callaghan, is vehemently opposed to allowing a panel with a lay majority to select names for the bench.

So in order to get the Judicial Appointments Bill through the Dáil, Fine Gael has turned to Sinn Féin.

In return, it has demanded that sentencing guidelines be prioritised.

All of which would seem a pretty reasonable trade-off until the Sinn Féin chief whip stands up in the Dáil and starts accusing judges of “anti-republican bias”.

This is nothing new from Sinn Féin, whose own leader Mary Lou McDonald backs the abolition of the Special Criminal Court.

The non-jury court was originally set up to hear cases involving suspected IRA members, but in recent times has been used to deal with a wider range of crimes including gangland murders.

The party’s attitude towards the courts was never more obvious than during the case of Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy, who was convicted of evading tax.

Ms McDonald described him as “a very typical rural man” and “very nice”.

Murphy previously sued a newspaper that described him as a former chief of staff of the IRA who masterminded the importation of weapons, and lost his case. A witness at that jury trial in the 1990s said Murphy had the power of deciding who lived and who died in the Louth/ Armagh Border region.

However, Ms McDonald refused to accept that he should be “treated differently” from other people charged with serious offences.

“I see no reason why this case couldn’t have been processed in the normal manner and, of course, where there are monies owing they have got to be recouped by the State,” she said.

The comments by Aengus Ó Snodaigh in the Dáil on Tuesday continued this message.

“If anybody wants a history of the anti-republican bias of judges in the Special Criminal Court, I have no problem at all; I have time to give,” he said.

Yet Fine Gael has decided to take Sinn Féin’s backing when it comes to the process for judicial appointments, and its advice on sentencing guidelines.

Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan told the Irish Independent last night that Sinn Féin “would seek to undermine the independence and standing of the judiciary should come as no surprise to anyone”.

But he said what will “come as a major surprise and a worry to many is that Fine Gael .... is negotiating sentencing policy with the Sinn Féin leadership in order to secure support”.

And in an insult that will sting, he added: “Fine Gael have indeed come a long way from the days when they claimed a role as the party of law and order.”

The Taoiseach moved to reassure his TDs last night that there was “no deal” on this issue or the recent Seanad elections.

But a trend is developing that will make many of his supporters uncomfortable.