Foreign parliament? No thanks

ON the off-chance that Peter Molloy was actually trying to make a serious argument (Irish Examiner letters, April 11), I would like to point out the following:

Sinn Féin has agreed to enter a power-sharing government with unionists and others in order to deliver equal representation for Irish people in an Irish parliament. It has no desire or need to sit in a foreign imperialist parliament that goes to war at the drop of a hat, and which has never served the interests of the Irish people.

As abstentionist MPs from Westminster, Sinn Féin representatives have served their constituents well. Both the nationalist electorate and the failed SDLP candidates who desire the grandeur of Westminster are testimony to this.

While Sinn Féin would never take its lead from what Mr de Valera did or did not do in the past, Mr Molloy should be aware that Dev’s hollow oath was taken as a means to take his party into an Irish parliament to serve Irish people, albeit a parliament that represented only part of the nation.

Far from Sinn Féin sitting in a foreign parliament which caused centuries of pain, destruction and division in Ireland, it is about to serve in the two existing Irish assemblies. From there, it will work to establish one true Irish parliament, which will serve all the people on this island equally.

If Mr Molloy really wants to make a link between de Valera’s past and Sinn Féin today, then he should consider this: the one seat Dev could not capture in the past — West Belfast — is now a Sinn Féin stronghold. Mr Molloy can rest assured that Sinn Féin will succeed where Dev failed, when he abandoned the outstanding national issue in the past.

Finally, as a well-meaning gesture to Mr Paisley and unionism in general, is Mr Molloy prepared to ask his local TD to switch allegiance to the House of Commons as an act of good faith?

Cllr Kieran McCarthy

Sinn Féin

89 Russell Heights

Cobh

Co Cork