SF denies US ban on fundraising

SINN FÉIN denied last night that the Bush Administration had banned it from fundraising in America after US Justice Department figures revealed it had raised more than $7 million (€5.26m) since 1995.

The US administration told Sinn Féin weeks ago to avoid fundraising in the US this year in the wake of the Robert McCartney murder and the IRA bank robbery, one US State Department official said yesterday.

“We made clear that it was a good thing if they decide to do that (not raise funds) at this juncture,” said the US State Department official.

Since 1995, when the ban on Sinn Féin fundraising in the America was lifted, the party has raised $7m (€5.26m) up to 2003, according to the official accounts it lodged with the US Justice Department.

These accounts also reveal that Sinn Fein raised at least $100,000 (€75,144) during previous St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the US.

But Sinn Féin yesterday denied it was told by the State Department to avoid US fundraising this year.

“The visa Sinn Féin was granted allows us to fundraise in the US, but we decided ourselves year that fundraising would have become a distraction and detract from the political meetings,” said a Sinn Féin spokeswoman.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher agreed this was the case.

But this St Patrick’s Day Mr Adams finds himself in the political wilderness following the refusal of US President George Bush not to invite him to the White House and Senator Edward Kennedy’s cancellation of his meeting because of the “IRA’s ongoing criminal activity and contempt for law and order.”

Mr Adams meets today with Mr Bush’s special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss, who has said, “There is no place in 2005 in Europe for a private army associated with a political party.”