Adams: Social charge is act of terrorism

GERRY Adams, who previously said he was proud of an organisation that murdered 1,700 people during the Troubles, has likened the Universal Social Charge to an “act of gross terrorism”.

Criticism has been heaped on the Sinn Féin president, who has never admitted he was a prominent figure in the IRA, for deliberately using the loaded phrase to describe the levy for health and social services.

He volunteered the analogy on Newstalk’s lunchtime show on the day he accused Fianna Fáil of starting a smear campaign for discussing his links to the paramilitary organisation.

“The first thing Sinn Féin would do, I repeat this again, is get rid of this awful Universal Social Charge, it is an act of gross terrorism and I use that term advisedly,” he said.

Mr Adams has continually denied membership of the IRA. This is despite a book which quoted the former IRA leader, Brendan Hughes, and linked the Louth election candidate to the murder and disappearance of mother-of-10 Jean McConville in 1972.

Shortly before Mr Adams’ “gross terrorism” comment FF leader Micheál Martin had said the SF leader cannot have credibility if he does not come clean about his membership of the terrorist organisation.

He said the allegations made by Mr Hughes, in the Ed Moloney’s book Voices from Beyond the Grave, needed to be addressed.

Mr Martin said because of Mr Adam’s baggage he was in no position to be talking about fraud during the campaign.

“Every time he talks in this debate and during the election about honesty, about being up front and transparent, it jars very much with his own position about the past. Martin McGuinness doesn’t have a problem admitting his membership in the past but I think there is a huge problem for Gerry Adams in a credibility sense,” he said.

But Mr Adams said this was “a smear”.

“It’s quite obvious that FF, the leadership anyway, want to get down into the gutter and get dirty,” he said.

Pearse Doherty, SF’s finance spokesman, was adamant people had made their minds up about Gerry Adams and the IRA a long time ago.

“We’re not going to take lectures from Micheál Martin, who served in Government for the last 14 years, who caused the economic collapse, who’s inflicting massive suffering on the working poor and those on social welfare,” he said.