Is middle Ireland ready for Sinn Féin?

With a team of effective young TDs and disillusionment with the main parties growing, Sinn Féin has risen in the polls. But to have a chance of winning power it needs the support of middle Ireland. Michael Clifford wonders if voters will take a chance on them at the next election

MARY LOU MCDONALD was at it again, hitting the Government where it hurt, dancing like a butterfly, stinging like a bee.

It was leader’s questions in the Dáil. Her chosen subject was politicians’ pay. How, she asked Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, could he justify “runaway, extravagant” levels of pay at a time when the Government was imposing increasing hardship on the public?