Search not fully justified - Senator

Bertie Ahern’s former adviser on Northern Ireland today said the reasons for the police raid on Sinn Fein’s Stormont offices had yet to be fully justified.

Senator Martin Mansergh said it was extraordinary for a party’s offices to be raided in such a way, and that it was the kind of thing associated more with 'semi-democratic' countries.

He said the events were a 'very serious development' and urged people to keep an open mind before passing judgment on the situation.

"I think they are very serious developments and as Brian Cowen has said, we need to keep an open mind, and indeed I think we need to be wide awake," Senator Mansergh said.

"It is an extraordinary thing in any democracy for the parliamentary offices of a political party to be heavily raided by a police force. I mean this is the sort of thing you associate more with, I don’t know, Turkey, President Mugabe, you know, countries that are sort of semi-democratic.

"Let me just give an analogy, if suppose the Fine Gael party had some sort of leaked government documents and there were a Garda raid on Fine Gael headquarters and tons of loads of documents were taken away, there would be a huge furore.

"So I think this is a very very serious development which has yet to be fully justified."

He said the charges were very serious and would have to be 'fully stood up'.

Speaking on Irish radio, Senator Mansergh questioned the timing of the police raids. He said: "If some of this dates back a year why the particular timing? I’m not at all sure for example the Irish Government was consulted about this or have been given any detailed information about what precisely is going on."

The recently appointed Senator was also adviser to other Fianna Fail governments and was a key figure in background negotiations leading to the current peace process.

Stephen King, adviser to Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, agreed there was a very serious situation, but said any allusion to a Mugabe regime was 'monstrous'.

Also speaking on RTE he said: "We are all going to pay for this, it looks as though the Assembly and executive can’t continue in their current form, for the moment, and we’re all going to pay for this, not just Sinn Fein."

British prime minister Tony Blair is expected to discuss the situation with Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams this week, and he is also due to meet David Trimble and nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan.

He will review the crisis in the peace process with Bertie Ahern at a meeting on Wednesday night.