Mick Clifford: Sinn Féin deserves the extra scrutiny it gets from the media

There has been some evolution in Sinn Féin’s cautious advance towards democratic normality but lights need to be shone into the darker recesses of the movement

Sinn Féin deputy leader Michelle O'Neill and leader Mary Lou McDonald outside Stormont in Belfast, speaking to media following a loyalist protest in the city against Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol. Picture: PA

Mary Lou McDonald signalled her support of the role of the media in a democracy on Thursday. 

She was interviewed on radio and television about Sinn Féin’s data information system which has been at the centre of a controversy for a few weeks. 

The system allegedly holds information about voters’ opinions without their consent. 

Data protection commissioners in this jurisdiction and the UK are looking into it. 

All week Sinn Féin representatives wouldn’t state where the information was held. 

On Thursday, Ms McDonald finally told Jonathan Healy on Newstalk that the server in question was located in Frankfurt.

Ms McDonald also told Mr Healy that she understood the media had a job to do in bringing this information into the public domain. 

She repeated words to this effect on RTÉ’s Prime Time on Thursday evening, adding “a particular spin was put on the story”. 

That’s standard fare in politics; most politicians believe they don’t get a fair shake in the media.

What is not standard in politics is the complete contrast between Ms McDonald’s nuanced opinion and the strident views expressed by legions of her party’s supporters online. 

All week the reporter who broke the story, Philip Ryan of the Irish Independent, was denigrated on social media. 

The constant theme was that his story was a puffed-up, ludicrous piece of anti-Sinn Féin propaganda. As it was to turn out, his story had substance.

The real target of the barrage was not Mr Ryan but voters. 

The message being conveyed was: “Look, they’re out to get us again. You can’t believe the media as it is constitutionally biased against Sinn Féin. They’re part of the establishment. Pay attention to the narrative, not the facts. Believe what your Facebook feed tells you, not what is published for the public at large.” 

Online battleground

While the party’s elected representatives sagely nod and accept the function of the media in a democracy, the supporters online do everything possible to undermine it. 

And online is the premier electoral battleground these days.

Right now, Sinn Féin is in pole position to be the lead party in the next government. On one level, that’s an exciting prospect. 

The differences between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have largely dissolved over recent decades; there are serious problems in society that neither party has addressed. 

Sinn Féin promises a new way and its frontline standard-bearers certainly talk a good game, which is at least half the battle in politics. 

The party also has a cadre of politicians genuinely committed to societal change.

Should Ms McDonald be elected taoiseach next time around, it will, in terms of our democracy, be the most significant transfer of power since 1932. 

Back then, Fianna Fáil was elected for the first time and nobody was sure how the handover would go or how wedded de Valera’s party was to the tenets of democracy as practiced at the time.

Arguably, no fears of that magnitude arise ahead of the next election, but there are aspects to Sinn Féin which would require extra scrutiny in any stable, liberal democracy. 

Officially, the party forsook support for violence and criminality on the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. 

Officially, since then the party has been a normal political entity focused exclusively on normal politics, respecting all the laws and tenets of this democracy.

That is the context in which many in the party rail against any scrutiny; they present Sinn Féin as a party of the people taking on the establishment. 

Scrutiny which they deem to be excessive is held up as the dead hand of the establishment lashing out.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, there is the stuff that gives cause for concern to anybody wedded to liberal democracy.

No recognition of Republic of Ireland

Sinn Féin does not recognise the Republic of Ireland. Instead, it claims allegiance to some mythologised Republic that never had a mandate. 

Does that provide an excuse to bypass some inconvenient laws in the actual political entity in they are deemed contrary to the goal of achieving the mythical Republic?

The party’s power structure is organised under a system called democratic centralism, which is alien to nearly all parties in the democratic world. 

The system bestows huge power on unelected personnel; surely that is repugnant to the concept of representative democracy?

Then there is the money. Nobody has ever dated the point at which Sinn Féin went legit in terms of its funding. 

When the campaign of violence was afoot, the Republican family operated with an Armalite in one hand and the ballot box in the other. It is inconceivable that one hand didn’t help out the other in its self-styled struggle.

Did that arrangement terminate on Easter Saturday 1998? Did the party leaders “go” to the IRA on that day and say: “Lads, no more money from robberies or protection rackets, we’re going legit. Thanks and goodbye”.

If not then, when? These things matter in a liberal democracy.

There has been some evolution in Sinn Féin’s cautious advance towards democratic normality. 

Throughout the 2000s there were various instances of criminality by members of the Republican family, including murder and robberies. It is inconceivable that such crimes would be dealt with by the party today as it was back then.

Not everything has changed. In 2017, in the course of the investigation into the death of Detective Garda Adrian Donoghue, a crucial witness had a problem.

He told the investigating garda that he was a Sinn Féin member and couldn’t talk until he consulted the party. 

The garda went to a Sinn Féin councillor who said that was a matter for party HQ. The garda then went to the local TD, Gerry Adams, who said the party would do what it could to help the investigation. 

Mr Adams reverted to the garda two weeks later to say the member had been spoken to and was available. Wherefore the mythical Republic?

That’s the background against which Sinn Féin is subjected to extra scrutiny in the media. That scrutiny is entirely warranted.

It is not a reflection on the personal integrity of individual politicians or members, among whom there are many perfectly decent people. 

However, with power looming, lights need to be shone into the darker recesses of the movement, or family, or whatever it defines itself as these days. 

It may not matter to many voters, but democracy is about more than just the ballot box.