SF under fire as PDs toast 20 years

IT may have been the PD’s birthday party but Sinn Féin gatecrashed it without even trying.

The strongest language of the night when the Progressive Democrats gathered to celebrate 20 years in politics was reserved, not for describing their own policies and ambitions, but for denigrating those of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

These two “gentlemen” had stolen the term “republican” and applied it to a movement that was “sectarian, divisive and cruel”, said Justice Minister Michael McDowell, recalling the atrocities of Enniskillen, the Mountbatten killings, the kidnapping of Don Tidey and the attempted kidnapping of Galen Weston.