Sinn Féin jump to defence of Adams

AS Martin McGuinness jumps to the defence of Sinn Féin party leader, Gerry Adams, over his handling of sex abuse allegations against his brother, a Sunday newspaper has denied being behind a smear campaign.

Yesterday, party assembly member, Caral Ní Chuilín, said there was “no cover-up or evasion” by Sinn Féin of sexual abuse allegations involving party members.

“A number of alleged victims have in recent weeks come forward to tell their story and I support them fully in that. However, the Sunday Tribune has sought to use these horrific abuse cases to form part of a smear campaign against Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin.”

Mr McGuinness, the North’s deputy first minister, yesterday attacked those he claimed were trying to use a personal family matter to undermine the senior republican’s political position.

In his first public comments on the controversy, Mr McGuinness made clear that he had only become aware of the claims Liam Adams abused his daughter Áine Tyrell in the 1970s and 1980s, in recent months.

“The Adams family have my total sympathy,” he said yesterday. “I haven’t spoken about this before but it is absolutely unimaginable to me what that family must have gone through and I actually find the reporting of all of this in some instances absolutely disgusting and highly provocative and quite clearly people are using it in an attempt to affect Gerry Adams’s leadership of Sinn Féin.”

In December, Mr Adams revealed his late father, Gerry Snr, subjected family members to emotional, physical and sexual abuse over many years.

He said he discovered the allegations levelled against his brother in 1987 and had brought Áine, then aged 14, to confront her father. He said statutory bodies, including the police, were told of the claims at that point.

Three years ago, after his niece went to the police, Mr Adams said he made a statement to the PSNI in support of Áine and against his brother. Liam Adams, who is on the run from the PSNI, walked into a Sligo Garda station before Christmas but was not detained as gardaí did not have a warrant.

Yesterday, responding to Sinn Féin’s allegations of a smear campaign, the Sunday Tribune newspaper said it “would pursue any political party and its leader with equal vigour given the information we have unearthed”.

“In relation to last Sunday’s edition and Sinn Féin’s allegation of manipulation of one of two victims who spoke to our northern editor Suzanne Breen, we categorically stand by our story and our treatment of the abuse survivors involved.

“It is being claimed by Sinn Féin and by one of the women, whose identity was not revealed in the Sunday Tribune, that Mr Adams did not know of the abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of a Sinn Féin elected representative.

“This is directly at odds with the information we were given and we have proof of this,” the Sunday Tribune claimed.