Sinn Féin urged to give US lecture fees to charity

SINN FÉIN faced demands yesterday to hand over to charity some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars raised on the lucrative US lecture circuit.

Amid claims that party president Gerry Adams commands up to $50,000 (44,400) in fees to appear before American college students, rival nationalists in Northern Ireland challenged him to donate the cash to debt-ridden

regions.

Senior SDLP representative John Dallat said: “With two-thirds of the world in abject poverty, I can think of many projects that could benefit from Mr Adams’ windfalls.”

Sinn Féin’s US fundraising operation is now set to top $7m (6.2m) by the end of the year, it has been claimed.

The Friends of Sinn Féin lobbying machine, set up by New York lawyer Larry Downes, rakes in hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

Mr Adams makes regular transatlantic trips to speak at glitzy dinners attended by the cream of Irish-America, with party supporters prepared to pay whatever it costs to hear him speak.

But according to the Sunday Tribune, bi-annual reports filed to the US Department of Justice show the Sinn Féin chief can command up to $50,000 for a question and answer session with students.

With the republican party’s coffers swelling from the appearances, Mr Dallat urged him to follow the lead set by former SDLP leader and Nobel laureate John Hume.

The former Northern Ireland Assembly member said: “There’s a lesson to be learned from John Hume, who raised the profile of the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul to a completely new level when he gave them his Nobel Peace Prize money.”

A Sinn Féin spokesman insisted, however, the most Mr Adams has ever received for a single event was $25,000.

Most of the cash raised goes back into running Sinn Féin’s expensive American operation, he added.

He also hit back at the charity demands, pointing out that the party had donated nearly $500,000 raised at its main New York fundraising dinner last year to the September 11 victims’ families.

“These fees wouldn’t be paid if it wasn’t justifiable. Sinn Féin is not setting the tariff on what it costs for lectures,” he said.