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.

“There is nothing republican about sectarian violence, murder, maiming, blackmailing, kidnapping, torture, extortion and robbery. There is no republicanism in public lying and deceits as a political vocabulary.

“Every body that the Provisionals left on Border roads or in shallow graves, with hands tied behind the back, with bullet wounds to the head, with marks of extensive torture to the limbs and trunk, still speaks silently across time of the monstrous cruelty and evil of that movement.

“While the members of the Army Council, whose sanction for each such murder was given, may now attempt to pose as statesmen, they will never wash away their personal direct responsibility for those acts.”

Mr McDowell devoted the bulk of his address to Sinn Féin, predicting a vigorous electoral campaign by the party and a singleminded determination to get into power as a partner in the next coalition government.

“It is time that every republican on the island of Ireland made it absolutely clear that there will be no room in democratic government, north or south, for a party or a movement that is controlled by a secret army,” he said.

“The IRA has to go away. It has to disband. No political party allied to it has any role in the government of the Irish people.”

PD founder Des O’Malley adopted a similar tone, moving from light-hearted reminiscences about the early days of the party to tell the 800-strong gathering in Dublin’s Burlington Hotel that there existed a “very obvious threat” that “might well undermine our democratic society”.

“It has overhauled the SDLP and brought Dr Paisley to the top of the pile.

“But its real longer term ambitions are down here. A voice in a sovereign government is a more valuable prize than dominance in a toothless, regional assembly.

“I fully agree with Michael McDowell’s characterisation of this threat.

“The challenge now is to confront and see down that threat and not allow its evil philosophy to prevail. I think it unwise to tolerate and indulge a culture of murder, torture, robbery, intimidation and racketeering.

“Criminality hasn’t gone away, you know.”

Only party leader, Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney avoided adding Mr Adams to the guest list. Her address focused on health and welfare reform, hospital conditions and care of the elderly.

Her ambition for the next 20 years was, she said to applause, for the public to be able “to say with pride this is the best country to grow up in, and the best country to grow old in”.

A difference in tone was also evident between Ms Harney and Mr McDowell on the issue of electoral strategy. Mr McDowell reiterated his recently announced plan for the party to double its strength in the next general election to gain 16 to 20 Dáil seats and four seats in Cabinet, declaring confidently “the means are in our hands”.

A more modest Ms Harney said: “There is no guarantee of success. There is no safe seat. The only things we will always have are our beliefs, our ambition and our hard work.”