Taking out Sinn Fein

Referring to the police investigation into the murder of former IRA man Kevin McGuigan in Belfast earlier this month, Hamilton announced that “some Provisional IRA organisational infrastructure continues to exist”.

Adams denied this in his speech. “Contrary to what the chief constable of the PSNI claims, the IRA has gone away,” he said. The organisation had ordered its volunteers to disarm and take part only in “purely political and democratic programmes” and no “other activities whatsoever”.

If the Sinn Fein president expected his words to defuse the situation, he was wrong. A week after his comments, Stormont is on the brink of collapse over the PSNI allegations.

With elections looming both north and south, the return of the IRA to political discourse could not come at a worse time for Sinn Fein. Others, too, have a lot at stake. Fine Gael’s ability to negotiate the highly sensitive politics of Northern Ireland will be tested for the first time, while Fianna Fail will be seeking to capitalise on Sinn Fein’s misfortune. So which parties will benefit, and which will lose, from this unexpected turn of events?

Fine Gael Minister for Justice and Equality Frances Fitzgerald (Sasko Lazarov)

FINE GAEL’S initial response was surprisingly muted. The innate caution of Iveagh House seeped from every paragraph of foreign affairs minister Charlie Flanagan’s statement, issued within hours of Hamilton’s remarks. “As these matters evolve, officials in the two governments remain in close contact and I expect to have an early opportunity to discuss matters directly with the secretary of state for Northern Ireland,” he said, making no mention of Sinn Fein or the IRA.

The following day, Simon Coveney, the minister for defence, echoed this careful tone on RTE’s This Week programme, saying that the government had to be “very cautious” not to exacerbate tensions in Northern Ireland.

A few hours later, speaking to journalists at the Michael Collins commemoration in Beal na Blath, Co Cork, the justice minister Frances Fitzgerald defended a letter sent to Sinn Fein by Nóirín O’Sullivan last February, in which the garda chief said the force had “no information or intelligence to support the assertion . . . that the Provisional IRA still maintains its military structure”.

Fitzgerald denied that this assessment put the Garda Siochana at odds with the PSNI. “I don’t think we should overplay the idea that there are huge disparities north and south in relation to the Provisional IRA — we are now in a post-conflict situation,” she said.

Parts of the media were deeply unimpressed, with one newspaper front page headline reading: “Coalition cowers in the face of new IRA threat.”

One academic said Fine Gael’s response was responsible and non-partisan, however. “All the political parties in the republic have a choice — if you see something happening in the north, you can take out the big stick to beat Sinn Fein.

“But, when you look at it carefully, if you apply a certain amount of stick to Sinn Fein, you are actually saying the kind of things that the unionists are saying and are therefore more likely to put pressure on the executive up there.”

Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin claimed it was the executive — and the future of the peace process — that he was concerned about when he launched a broadside against the Sinn Fein president on Monday. “Deputy Adams is essentially asking the Irish people to trust his word, over the word of the most senior PSNI officers in the north,” he said. “A peace process that is the product of decades of hard work by very many people on all sides of the political spectrum has been put at risk by the dishonesty of the Provisional Sinn Fein and IRA leadership.”

Martin also tackled the government’s mild response, saying it was “unsustainable” for Enda Kenny, the taoiseach, to remain silent on the issue. “This crisis needs leadership and it needs honesty,” he said.

Mick Fealty, the editor of Northern Irish political website sluggerotoole.com, said it was the moment Martin had been waiting for. “Fianna Fail has spent the past three or four years building a political presence in the north, consistently critiquing Sinn Fein on the justice issue,” he said. “It’s a long game plan. Martin has been trying to build a narrative bridge between the north and south so whenever things go wrong in the north, he’s there, and he can take that material and chuck it at the Shinners in the south.

“Fianna Fail will use it on the doorsteps, saying to people, ‘This is really what Sinn Fein is all about’ — turf wars, drugs money, the IRA, all of that dirty stuff that might affect people in working-class Dublin areas and might give them pause to think about who these nice shiny new Sinn Fein councillors and TDs actually are, and who they’re attached to.”

Martin’s uncompromising criticism of Sinn Fein put it up to the other parties to respond. On Monday evening, Labour leader Joan Burton said the IRA was “an insidious threat . . . to the whole of this island”.

Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy

On Tuesday, Fitzgerald did an about-turn. In a lengthy statement, she said she had asked the garda commissioner to conduct a “fresh assessment” on the status of the IRA. “There is no doubt that people who have been associated with PIRA have been — and continue to be — involved in the most serious crime and neither Gerry Adams nor Sinn Fein can wash their hands of responsibility for that,” she said.

“What steps does Sinn Fein take to ensure that they do not benefit in any way from the proceeds of crime? Will he apologise for the fact that people who PIRA trained to kill may be continuing to do so in whatever capacity? And will he explain what parts of smuggling and money laundering ever honoured the legacy of 1916 which his party wish to hijack?”

The justice minister spent most of Tuesday afternoon doing the rounds of TV and radio interviews, attacking Sinn Fein. Some in the party admitted to being a little uncomfortable at the optics. “It was all a bit cack-handed,” said one senior Fine Gael figure. “Frances has been good up to now, but this was not good. She was caught on the back foot, and everyone could see it.”

Fealty said Fine Gael’s relative inexperience in dealing with Northern Irish issues was revealed last week. “This has caught them totally off guard,” he said. “The government hasn’t given a lot of thought to Northern Ireland. Resources in the Department of Foreign Affairs have been taken away from the north and redeployed to Europe. That has been their priority, and understandably so, but now we’re seeing they’re exposed on this issue.”

Sinn Fein was also exposed. On Wednesday, former justice minister Michael McDowell said the Irish and British governments allowed the IRA to continue as an “unarmed and withering husk” after it officially disarmed in 2005. Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern confirmed this the following day. Sinn Fein’s claim that there is no longer an IRA structure, even one without any military purpose, was looking increasingly incredible.

Still, Adams stuck by it. “I don’t agree with the PSNI chief constable’s claim that the IRA exists — even in the benign way he paints it,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “There is nothing more Sinn Fein can do.” On this last point, the Sinn Fein president might be right. Short of announcing that the IRA does, in fact, still exist, there are “very few plays left” for Adams, said Fealty.

“His best hope is the rope-a-dope strategy,” he said, referring to a boxing tactic used by Muhammad Ali against George Foreman in 1974, in which Ali allowed himself to be pummelled on the ropes by his opponent until Foreman was exhausted — at which point Ali came out fighting, and won. “I think all Adams can do now is put the gloves up,” said Fealty.

This is what Adams has done during his tenure as a Dail deputy, when he was hit with sex abuse claims involving the IRA, one involving his own brother. Thus far, it’s worked. Sinn Fein has proven largely immune to levels of negative publicity that would have destroyed other parties.

So how much will it suffer if the Northern Irish assembly collapses? In the wake of Hamilton’s comments, Mike Nesbitt, leader of the Ulster Unionist party (UUP), stormed down the steps in Stormont to make a “significant announcement”. The news that the IRA still existed, with a command structure, had “shattered trust”, he said, and the UUP intended pulling out of the executive. The assembly can survive without the UUP, but the party’s stance puts huge pressure on the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) to take an equally unforgiving approach. DUP leader Peter Robinson is due to meet British prime minister David Cameron to discuss the issue “very soon”.

Fealty said there is an inevitability to the outcome, however. “If you look at what Robinson has been saying in the past few months, warning about Stormont collapsing, it’s clear that’s where it was going because both Sinn Fein and the DUP wanted out,” he said.

“But, until now, Robinson was comfortable in the knowledge that he would be controlling the crash. Now, Nesbitt has grabbed the steering wheel, and Robinson is no longer in charge. Robinson will slow down time, as he always does, but the UUP’s exit means the end will come somewhere between the middle and the end of the month.”

In the absence of the Northern Irish assembly, direct rule will return and the UK government will put in a raft of controversial budget cuts — which Sinn Fein has been opposing — wreaking hardship on northern citizens.

Perhaps, Sinn Fein is not too worried. “If you were to be cynical about all this, the collapse actually suits Sinn Fein,” said Fealty. “If there’s nothing to do in the north except a bit of backroom negotiations, that gives Sinn Fein the chance to concentrate all their efforts on the election down here.

“They’re already shipping some of their talent down south. I’m not saying they masterminded this whole thing, I don’t think they did. But it could work out quite well for them, in the end.”