Crass of Martin to exploit Aine Adams’ ordeal

Fianna Fáil leader, Michael Martin, says “that just like the Church, the Republican movement saw the institution of the Republican movement as more important than individual victims.”

Considering that he is the leader of the ‘Republican party,’ does he include his party, past and present, in that statement? Fianna Fáil gave a sweet deal to the religious orders in the past, in relation to compensation for abuse victims.

Does he not see the hypocrisy of claiming that Republicans are more interested in the Republican movement than in individual victims, when he himself is using a high-profile abuse case for his own party’s political point-scoring?

Rather than get in a few cheap shots at Republicans, he would have been better-served commenting on why law and order in Northern Ireland didn’t act upon the abuse, and convict without putting others in danger.

Like his counterpart, Fine Gael leader and An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, Martin is quick to throw around individual names to attack Republicans, when it suits him and his party, yet scurries off into a dark corner when the going gets tough. Martin knows the facts of the case, the timeline of reporting, and the failings of the RUC investigation, yet he has distorted these and used Aine Adams’ ordeal as a stick with which to beat Republicans. It is beneath Martin, a man who aspires to be leader of this country, to crassly and contemptibly exploit an abuse victim’s suffering to further his own political ends.

Brian Ward

Mallow

Co Cork