Why do our political leaders gloss over Dublin’s dirty little secret?

Sad to say, it’s a telling sign that when a statue to a Nazi collaborator goes up in Dublin, the least that happens is a splash of emulsion. Can you imagine if a statue to Marshal Pétain were erected in Paris? Or one to Quisling in Oslo? Or even of Mussolini in Italy?

SINN Féin have a way of testing everyone’s patience. If asked “do you condemn attacks on property?”, I suspect 99% of us would say “yes”. But when that attack amounts to spray-painting a monument to a Nazi collaborator? Now that’s a difficult one.

Would I succumb to the temptation to do it myself? Certainly not.