Mary Lou McDonald wrote in this paper on Monday: “People want to be part of the conversation on the future of Ireland, on the shape of constitutional change, and how best to navigate the next steps of the journey to reunification.”
The Sinn Féin leader then summarised the proposals presented in the party’s Commission on the Future of Ireland.
By coincidence, on the same day, Colum Eastwood was saying much the same when he pointed out that all the parties in the south in their election manifestos committed to reunification as an objective.
No doubt Eastwood will follow this up by meetings with those parties in the south. McDonald won’t.
This is a mise en scène for an extraordinary performance of contradictions, hypocrisy, doublethink and double standards.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will happily engage with Eastwood even though his party doesn’t organise in the south, has no seats in the Dáil, and has speaking rights only at the all-party Committee on the Good Friday Agreement.
However, they will not speak to Sinn Féin on anything, let alone the future of Ireland or the shape of constitutional change.
As McDonald pointed out, Micheál Martin in particular preaches in the north parity of esteem, and respect for everyone’s electoral mandate. So it’s do as I say, not do as I do, south of the border.
Both he and Simon Harris cast around for reasons not to speak to Sinn Féin. Martin keeps saying their policies on the EU, enterprise and taxation are different.
Rubbish, for he engages with Labour and the Social Democrats whose policies on the economy and society are also very different.
It’s just a transparently disingenuous excuse to avoid talking to the second biggest party, with 39 seats in the Dáil and over 400,000 votes.
However, where hypocrisy and double-dealing come to the fore is in the willingness of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to negotiate with the self-styled Regional Independents, even in today’s Dáil proceedings, considering the independents’ proposal for a Ceann Comhairle who is not known for fluency in Irish, hitherto an essential requirement for the post.
Worse in all respects is that while they find Sinn Féin too repugnant and unpardonable to talk to, the person representing the Regional Independents they are probably going to invite to join the government is Tipperary TD Michael Lowry.
Michael Lowry 15 years ago was a political pariah. In 1997 the Dáil set up a tribunal under Justice Michael Moriarty to examine Lowry’s dealings as Minister for Communications with Denis O’Brien, later one of the richest men in Ireland.
In 2011 Moriarty found that Lowry “beyond doubt gave substantial information” to O’Brien about the competition for the south’s mobile phone licence.
Supporting the 2011 all-party Dáil resolution for Lowry to resign from the Dáil, Micheál Martin quoted Moriarty’s findings.
Lowry was “an insidious and pervasive influence” in the process, engaged “in a cynical and venal abuse of office”, and was involved in attempting to influence an arrangement that was “profoundly corrupt to a degree that was nothing short of breathtaking”. Deputy Lowry “should consider his position and resign”. He didn’t of course.
Unabashed, Lowry preposterously predicted Moriarty’s findings would be seen as “a scandal of epic proportions”. They haven’t been.
Later, in 2018 Lowry was convicted of tax offences. There’s more, but you get the picture.
Yet Micheál Martin and Simon Harris see no contradictions in negotiating with Lowry.
It should also be said that the independents see no problem is appointing him their spokesperson. There’s every likelihood that Lowry will end up in the cabinet.
After all, he tops the poll in Tipperary and you can’t ignore his 12,000 odd voters, can you? It’s not as if they vote Sinn Féin, eh?
There are at least two other disquieting aspects to the absurd contradictions in Martin’s (especially) and Harris’ attitude and behaviour.
First, Martin adamantly refuses to accept Sinn Féin’s mandate in the south yet insists the DUP must share power with them in the north because they have an electoral mandate. Pot, kettle?
Secondly, Sinn Féin win over 70% of the nationalist vote in the north. By refusing to accept it on equal terms as a political party in the Dáil, Martin is also openly rejecting northern nationalists.
Sinn Féin is a national party with a single ard comhairle. The Dáil party is the same as the Stormont one.
At least in this respect Martin is consistent. He’s been distancing himself and his party from northern nationalism for a decade.
He wouldn’t even let the poor old SDLP have a stall at this year’s Fianna Fáil ard fheis.