Political World
Adams’ historic utterances create hostage to fortune
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
If you are a politician, words will always come back to haunt you – especially in this Google era. Sometimes, it’s a promise that has performed a u-turn…or an inconsistency between a current position and one held in the distant past.
Sometimes it’s just hubris, saying something in a particular situation – even in the heat of the moment – that you already know will catch up with you at a later stage.
It was Haughey telling us in 1980 that we were all living beyond our means. It was Bertie in the mid-noughties telling those predicting a crash to go off and commit suicide.
For Gerry Adams it was telling an audience of rigid republicans that the IRA “haven’t gone away you know”.
That quote has been used as a political stick with which to beat Adams every since he uttered it some years ago.
In the past week, the PSNI chief constable has said that the Provisional IRA is not involved in terrorist activities but that its structures remain intact.
The PSNI also believes that members – or former members – of the IRA were involved in the Belfast murder of Kevin McGuigan, a father of nine.
For its part, the Garda Síochána has said that individuals linked to the IRA are still involved in crime.
Those assessments created a political furore with all of Sinn Féin’s political opponents raising concerns about an extant IRA and the difficulties it posed to democracy – essentially that Sinn Féin’s approach to the political process was being guided, if not governed, by shadowy figures in the background.
Adams’ response was to attack the assessments as politically motivated. This has become Sinn Féin’s default response to any criticism that is levelled against it, particularly when an embarrassing reminder of some of its less than glorious past activities comes to the fore.
The key part of the statement he issued whilst on holidays was: “In July 2005 the IRA left the stage. Its leadership ordered an end to the armed campaign; its representatives to ‘engage with the IICD to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use’ and instructed its volunteers to take part only in ‘purely political and democratic programmes’ and no ‘other activities whatsoever’.
“All of this was done as part of a genuine initiative to build a just and lasting peace and in support of the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement.”
To his contention that in July 2005 the IRA left the stage, his detractors will try to out-trump him with ‘they haven’t gone away you know’.
The funny thing is that the assessments of the PSNI and An Garda Síochána, as well as Adams statements, do not necessarily contradict each other.
When Séanna Walsh appeared on the video in 2005 telling his Provisional colleagues to step down, there was plenty of comment that the Provisional IRA would continue to exist albeit in a form not unlike the British Legion or other retired army organisations.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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