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The
sense of apprehension that has swollen within Southern
governing class minds since Sinn Fein comfortably
outpolled the SDLP in last year's Northern assembly
elections has yet to subside. What consolation Fianna
Fail, positioned as it is at the centre of the governing
bloc, extracted from Bertie Ahern's 'most subtle gutting'
of Caoimhghin O' Caolain in Leinster House, has added
little spring to the party step from which the observer
could discern a confidence based on an uninterrupted
expectation of hegemony cum longevity for Fianna Fail.
Like the hare seeking to put it up to the hound,
O'Caolain sustained his gutting for being foolhardy
enough to publicly pronounce the modern equivalent
of the earth being flat. It is perhaps not unfair
to speculate that there are as many people who sincerely
believe that Sinn Fein does not profit from IRA activity,
as there are those who believe that the Sinn Fein
president has never been a member of the IRA. The
same people, arguably, distinguish themselves from
the thinking community by believing both.
Stephen
Collins may report in the Sunday Tribune that
the IRA is involved in:
robbery,
smuggling, racketeering and surveillance, particularly
in Dublin, where the organisation is now believed
to be generating very large amounts of money …
it is now raking in a percentage from the ordinary
criminal gangs
But
republicans of all hues see little of news value in
it. And whatever the accuracy of their claims, even
West Belfast hoods complain bitterly that the substantial
sum of money they robbed on the Falls Road last October
was taken from them by the IRA 'just to be handed
over to Sinn Fein.'
Sinn
Fein alone appears to question the content of Minister
for Justice Michael McDowell's claims about the party
being financed to some degree by the army. Gerry Adams
insisting that 'there is no substance to these allegations'
assumes the persona of Lord Aston, prompting only
a Mandy Rice Davis retort - 'he would, wouldn't he.'
But, if the substance of McDowell's salvo leaves little
for critics with which to fashion counter charges
of inaccuracy, his timing has raised a few eyebrows,
as self-interest flashes subliminally across more
than a few minds. Sinn Fein is hardly doing anything
today that it has not been doing for decades. In fact
it is plausible to believe that the party is now more
sensitive to allegations about its behaviour than
at any time in its history; not an altogether inconsiderable
constraint. Why all the fuss only now?
Matt
Cooper, writing in the Tribune just before
Christmas, welcomed the intervention by McDowell.
But he attributed no motive other than ‘moral’
to the man in the driving seat at Justice. ‘There
seems to be no obvious political advantage the PDs
can derive from Michael McDowell’s highly charged
attack on Sinn Fein.’ Yet a more probing mind
would wonder if McDowell's critique of Sinn Fein was
as much about limiting Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's wriggle
room when the time comes to decide who Fianna Fail
shall form the next coalition government with. Whatever
the Fianna Fail leader's protestations that his party
will not enter a coalition with Adams’ party
there are grounds for feeling he protests too much.
Sinn Fein obviously stands to improve its position
in future southern elections. According to Paul Bew:
Dublin
is now transfixed with fear but at the same time
seems helpless to resist the irresistible rise of
Sinn Fein ... in the November elections the shark
devoured the SDLP in Belfast; next summer, it plans
to devour Fianna Fail in Dublin.
Reason
enough for PD denizens to be jolted into making it
as difficult as possible for Fianna Fail to jilt them
and hook up with a new partner – Sinn Fein.
The
Republic’s political class is now facing the
offspring its planned temporary dalliance with Sinn
Fein helped produce. It impregnated political culture
with the notion that it was acceptable for Sinn Fein
to sit in government in the North - but not in the
South - while the party leadership continued to manage
and oversee a functioning IRA. Diarmuid Doyle put
it in less than flattering terms:
I
understand that a certain amount of leeway has to
be allowed to people like O’Caolain and McGuinness
and Arthur Morgan as they slither their way into
normal society.
The
political class assumed that the Sinn Fein leadership's
decision not to retire the IRA was something it could
go easy on giving that it appeared to be a matter
exclusive to the North; determined either by the political
imperatives of negotiations or by issues internal
to the party's military wing. By maintaining the IRA,
Sinn Fein could steadily keep the process fluid and
move forward in an incremental fashion, drip-bleeding
concessions from the British government; or alternatively,
Sinn Fein was considered the best judge to evaluate
the impact of any concession republicans might have
to make on its own constituency of which the IRA is
a substantial part. In any event, the existence of
the IRA was considered as relevant only to the North
and ultimately an impediment to the progress of the
party in the South.
The
problem now confronting the Dublin government is that
through its retention of the IRA Sinn Fein is creeping
up on the blindside in the Republic. There is little
that would support the notion that the Adams leadership
is fearful of dissolving the IRA in case there is
some recalcitrant body of republicans waiting on the
opportunity to challenge the leadership. That moment
came and went in 1997, and a multitude of civilians
rather then the Sinn Fein leadership paid the price,
as the Real IRA set about slaughtering them in Omagh
the following year. Given that the Sinn Fein leadership
has managed on occasion, to cite Jim Gibney, to turn
the IRA upside down, Adams faces no internal obstacles
to sleight of hand disbandment. Moreover, the ability
to use the IRA in the North for leverage has dissipated
as a result of republicans being blamed for the prolonged
hiatus afflicting the political institutions. Pressure
for concessions from Sinn Fein rather than concessions
to it is going to mount as both governments seek to
find the appropriate stabiliser with which to entice
unionism, in its new form, into the power sharing
saddle once again. In sum the IRA prohibits Sinn Fein
from acquiring institutional power, and in the absence
of internal opposition why not put it out to graze?
The
IRA as we have come to know it will ultimately be
dissolved when Sinn Fein decide that there is nothing
else to do but go back into government in the North.
That moment would come all the sooner if in the absence
of such participation in government, the party’s
expansionism was to be arrested. But, despite Bertie
Ahern being supposedly ‘seething with anger at
the way republican intransigence has led to the current
impasse’ in the North, his approach has in fact
facilitated such ‘intransigence.’ Playing
footsie with the IRA in the mistaken belief that its
existence is relevant only to the North’s political
institutions, has both postponed ‘completion’
in the North and created leg room for Sinn Fein in
the South. Political analysts might now just consider
that the IRA is being retained primarily because of
its potential to enhance the profile of Sinn Fein
in the Republic.
Through
its management of the peace process the Sinn Fein
leadership has performed remarkably well in terms
of profiling itself. Party president, Gerry Adams
has been catapulted to poll position in the popularity
stakes in the Republic, making him the party's most valuable and vital asset in the party's expansion there. Such a meteoric rise is not a
result of his social and economic policies, his false promises of
a united Ireland in 2016, or because the Southern
electorate need some Percy Pompous to relieve them
of their political tedium. Without the peace process
would Adams in spite of his political dexterity be
any more relevant than the leader of the Greens in
Dublin? And what dynamic would the peace process have
if the IRA ceased to exist? The North would have attained
post-peace process status. By holding onto the IRA
and depicting it as part of a wider problem, Adams
holds out the possibility that he more than anyone
else has the potential to be the problem solver. In
terms of profile building, it is a recipe for major
success. A subtle but brilliant use of the IRA, made
all the more dazzling by the inability of Dublin to
see it.
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