Sinn Féin’s duty is to the electorate, not the IRA army council
UNTIL our elected representatives form a new administration, our zombie government will have its dead hand at the country’s tiller. In this vacuum, Sinn Féin insists its electoral success entitles it to a role in government. The party now intends to press its claim with a series of Trump-style rallies nationwide.
Former Justice Minister Alan Shatter last night said: ‘Rallies to demand a Sinn Féin-led government have no valid role in our democracy.’
Mr Shatter is right. During this power vacuum, it is vital that the agencies of the State continue to carry out their duties. It is welcome, therefore, that the Garda Commissioner has not shied away from his responsibilities. On Friday, Drew Harris told a passing out ceremony at the Garda College in Templemore that he ‘does not differ’ from the 2015 assessment of the Police Service of Northern Ireland that the Provisional Army Council still oversees both Sinn Féin and the IRA.
During the recent election campaign, Sinn Féin supporters dismissed links to the IRA as historical and irrelevant. When Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil both ruled out Sinn Féin as a coalition partner, it was argued they were hypocritical for insisting the party was suitable for government in the North but not in Leinster House.
As it happens, the example of Sinn Féin’s behaviour in government in the North is instructive.
At the height of the so-called ‘Cash For Ash’ scandal that brought down the Assembly, emails showed that the party’s then finance minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir sought consent for his course of political action from senior Republicans, including two who had served time for IRA activities.
On Friday, Mary Lou McDonald said the IRA no longer existed ‘so far as I am aware’. This was a reiteration of what Sinn Féin was happy to trumpet in 2015 when then-commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan appeared to confirm in a letter to the party’s Pádraic Mac Lochlainn that the IRA had ceased to exist. Ms O’Sullivan later clarified this, emphasising that her belief, and that of the PSNI, was that the IRA had ceased paramilitary activity, not that it had entirely disbanded.
It’s unfortunate that the party is willing to accept as evidence the word of one Garda commissioner but not another.
The prospect of a governmentled, or heavily influenced, by a party that fundamentally disagrees with the view of Mr Harris on an issue of such national and constitutional importance is profoundly worrying.
Similarly worrying is the sniping attitude of the party’s acolytes in response, with repeated references online to Mr Harris’s previous employment with the PSNI.
Drew Harris is fulfilling his duty. It is time Sinn Féin realised that if it wants to be taken seriously as a party of government, its duty is to the electorate and to democracy. Not the IRA.
Hospital chaos
IT is deeply shocking that a patient who was well enough to leave hospital waited more than five years to be released – and while new figures from the HSE show that there has been some improvement in reducing the number of so-called ‘delayed discharge cases’, there still is a long way to go.
Over the last two years, delayed discharges saw muchneeded beds unnecessarily tied up for 490,838 nights.
HSE funding is running at record levels. It would be helpful if management improved at the same pace.