Editorial:McDowell comes to Sinn Féin's rescue

The Irish Independent opinion poll's apparent endorsement of Sinn Féin, following a week of relentless negative publicity for the party, is less a testament to its integrity, its policies and its electoral strategies than it is an indictment of the political establishment.

That a party believed by most people to have been engaged in widespread criminality, murder, intimidation, robbery and money laundering should record a level of support double that won by it in the 2002 general election (10 per cent according to the poll, as compared with five per cent in the 2002 general election) suggests a degree of disillusionment on the part of a section of the electorate with conventional politics.

Just remember what was claimed about Sinn Féin during the week of that poll: that party members were directly involved in the laundering of millions of euro in the Cork area and elsewhere in the country; that the laundered money had come from the proceeds of mega bank raids in Northern Ireland and other criminality in the South; that members of the party, and particularly its leader, Gerry Adams, were shielding the murderers of Robert McCartney in Belfast, and supporting the intimidation of witnesses to that murder; that Sinn Féin was implicated with a Bulgarian crime syndicate in plans to buy a Bulgarian bank; that three of its leaders, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Martin Ferris, were members of the IRA army council that approved of the criminality, money laundering, murder and intimidation; that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were engaged in duplicitous dealings with the British and Irish governments and the other Northern political parties.

The alarm of the establishment in the South with the poll ratings, in the light of this media bloodbath, was captured by the decision of the editors of the Irish Independent, on the first day of its coverage of its own poll, to focus not on the substantive findings of the poll on support for political parties, but almost entirely on the "collapse" in the ratings of Gerry Adams as Sinn Féin President. But even his ratings defied the avalanche of negative publicity, in that over a third of the population believes he is doing a good job.

There are indeed reasons for disillusionment. This column focused last week on the theft of more than €800m by the State from old people and the response of Mary Harney to legitimise that theft retrospectively by the passage of legislation which the Supreme Court found unconstitutional.

The parents of Brian Murphy, murdered outside a nightclub in Dublin some years ago, expressed dismay with the criminal justice system, claiming it was weighted in favour of accused persons. Their distress is understandable in personal terms, but if any criticism is to be made of the criminal justice system it is that it is weighted hugely in favour of the rich and powerful. No banker stood in the dock over the massive thefts perpetrated by the banks over DIRT and other escapades. No State official will stand in the dock over the theft of more than €800m from old people. Nobody has ever stood in the dock over the mega insider trading thefts on the Stock Exchange that nobody wants to know about. Very few Gardaí ever stand in the dock over the widespread criminality, corruption and negligence engaged in by a small number of that force and the complicity, through their silence and evasions, of very many other members of that force.

The official Garda apology to the family of Dean Lyons is a case in point. This poor man was charged with the murder of two women, Sylvia Shields and Mary Callinan, in Grangegorman in March 1997. The prosecution was based solely on an alleged "confession" to the murders made by Dean Lyons. It subsequently transpired he did not commit the murders and that the "confession" was a hoax. A hoax either because he had invented an account of the murder, which the Gardaí could easily have established was false, or because the Gardaí made up the statement and claimed it was dictated by Dean Lyons.

All this came to light several years ago and what happened? There was an internal Garda enquiry and then nothing. The Gardaí have refused to publish their own report on the matter; nobody has been fired. And yet this man could have been convicted of the murders of these women because of this fabricated "confession", had it not been that another person, Mark Nash, volunteered that he had been responsible.

The ongoing revelations at the Morris Tribunal of Garda criminality, incompetence, negligence and corruption cause not a ripple of official concern, as far as one can discern. The recommendations of the first interim report of that Tribunal remain largely ignored, which is hardly surprising, since the Dáil has failed to debate the report, which was published last July. Meanwhile Gardaí are being invested with further powers under a new Criminal Justice Bill, as we report in this issue of Village.

Also, as we report, the Irish Commission on Human Rights has issued an excoriating judgment on Ireland's human rights record across a broad range of fronts, again issues on which there is official indifference.

Only Sinn Féin will exult in their poll ratings after this week of turmoil for it. The party remains steeped in thuggery and violence. Its equality credentials remain untested because of the vagueness of its policies. There remains a suspicion that if it cleared up its act on paramilitarism, it would surface as just another opportunist presence on the political landscape.

In the meantime, however, the political establishment might reflect on how it is that a party so thoroughly discredited can fare so well with the electorate and perhaps Michael McDowell might reflect on his considerable contribution to Sinn Féin's good fortune.

Vincent Browne