The high road to the republic

Sinn Féin moved decisively at its ard-fheis last weekend to intensify the party's appeal in the South, as a means of breaking the logjam on political development in the North brought about by the DUP's refusal to engage.

Party president Gerry Adams told delegates that Sinn Féin faced five major strategic challenges: to see the Good Friday Agreement implemented; to engage with Unionism; to build support for Irish unity in Britain; to build an Ireland of equals North and South; and to build Sinn Féin as the catalyst for change.

Underlying this message is a recognition by the party leadership that the two governments look unlikely to confront the DUP's refusal to engage in the way that Sinn Féin would like, and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness spelled out that Sinn Féin would prefer to see the Assembly scrapped if the Unionists continue to refuse to play ball.

But if the road forward in the North is blocked at this stage, party strategists believe that pushing the party's growth in the South – even to the point of entering a coalition government – is the key to circumventing that block and using the party's strength and influence in the South to advance its all-Ireland agenda, Unionist oppositionism notwithstanding.

Central to this at the ard-fheis was firstly to hold the line on the North. "We should not wobble," Martin McGuinness warned delegates. In other words, even though there is considerable disquiet about the two governments' bona fides in pushing the Good Friday Agreement and a widespread feeling that the major IRA concessions of last July have been reneged on by the governments and other parties, the leadership argued that the peace process was the only way forward.

Gerry Adams spelled it out quite clearly. Conceding that he had "huge reservations about how the two governments were approaching the talks", he nevertheless said that those who felt the IRA had made a mistake last July were "entitled to their opinion but no more than that".

He went on: "No one should harbour the notion that the republican struggle can be advanced any further by an armed campaign. This leadership," he said, "is firmly opposed to such a departure."

Across the board, delegates responded to this message. Effectively, the leadership has placed itself at the head of those who are critical of the way the Agreement has not been implemented and has failed to deliver what Republicans wanted. The debate on policing, which the leadership won hands down, illustrated this. An acceptable policing structure is not yet achieved – no dissent on that – but it can be won and the securocrats put on the back foot – dissent, but minority dissent, on that.

Developing the party's strength in the South was the main thrust of most of the ard-fheis debates, with major policy papers on health, enterprise and job creation and the all-Ireland agenda being published.

More and more the party is putting flesh on its programmes, which its strategists believe will not only win voters and members to Sinn Féin but will put rival parties on the defensive.

The ard-fheis moved to clarify any areas that might have appeared fuzzy. On taxation, for example, Gerry Adams stated clearly that the party intends to tax the rich – through higher corporation taxes and special income taxes on those earning over €120,000 a year – to pay for its increased spending programmes and to begin a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor.

Its programmes also emphasise equality and one system for all, with a rights-based approach and opposition to privatisation of any part of the health service. And in his presidential address, Adams called for the restoration of the number of beds at least to the level of 1980 when there were 17,500 acute hospital beds in the South's health service, instead of the 12,000 there are now.

By any standards this is a programme of major radical change, and as such it will pose a major challenge to Fianna Fáil, but especially to the Labour Party.

Central to the whole debate, of course, is the issue of having power to implement the policies. Adams stated it clearly that "Sinn Féin is about gaining political power ... about making change." Again the leadership arguments easily carried the day on the coalition debate, when many Southern delegates voiced opposition to doing any deal with Fianna Fáil or the other southern parties. The leadership, however, argued that voters expect the party to be serious about its politics, to have confidence in its own integrity and not to be afraid of entering the real arena.

Sinn Féin dismiss the possibility that if the crunch was there, that Fianna Fáil would still refuse to do business. The party is more interested in laying down the terms for such a coalition which will mean a reversal of the main trends brought about by the PDs, and the strengthening of more socially-conscious trends within Fianna Fáil, emphasising wealth redistribution and health, education and social services for all as the keys to economic policy.

Advances here, especially if the party does gain places in Government, will mean that it could drive forward the Irish reunification agenda through the cross-border bodies and other direct North-South co-operation irrespective, of the obstructionism of the Unionist parties.

For the leadership, it has been a very successful ard-fheis, with the party united behind the leadership, with clarity as to the radical character of its economic and fiscal proposals, and with a determined forward-looking stance at pushing both the Good Friday Agreement and the case for Irish unity that is connected to it. This is the High Road to the Republic.

Eoin Ó Murchú is the Eagraí Polaitíochta of RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta. He is writing here in a personal capacity