Fianna Fáil attacks on Sinn Féin do nothing for peace

Bertie Ahern celebrates his election to the Dáil in 1997. PHOTO: Darren Kinsella

Bertie Ahern is like my local bus service. Nothing for ages and then we see him splashed all over the papers two Sundays in a row.

With the festive season now upon us, he’s the ghost of Christmas past with an honest to Jaysus Dublin accent, appearing out of the shadows of obscurity to offer us his pearls of wisdom on everything from the Irish economy to the peace process.

And to give him his due, the Good Friday Agreement will stand as his enduring political achievement. He has every right to talk about it and take much of the credit for bringing peace to this island.

It’s hard not to cringe, though, when he mentions anything to do with the economic crash and tries to explain how he didn’t see that one coming. I imagine it’s not something he puts on the CV these days.

Little did Bertie think back in those tumultuous days of the late 1990s that the Shinners would not only be nipping at Fianna Fáil’s heels, but would have overtaken them in the polls, trampling all over their candidates in elections.

Fianna Fáil’s current leader, Micheál Martin, is acutely aware of this and rarely misses an opportunity to refer to his arch enemies as “Sinn Féin-IRA”, a term long consigned to the bad old days of  ‘The Troubles’. Whatever his views on Gerry Adams, the reality is that Sinn Féin enjoy considerable electoral support on this side of the border and have as much right to be in the Dáil as Martin’s TDs.

For Micheál Martin to persist with using such a pre-peace process cliché to describe his political opponents is unusual, especially when you consider his party’s role in bringing Sinn Féin to the political table. But politics is a ruthless game and it now suits Fianna Fáil (and Fine Gael and Labour) to remind the electorate of Sinn Féin’s shady past.

That’s not to say that the Sinn Féin leadership don’t have questions to answer, particularly in relation to their handling of sex abuse allegations. But to constantly refer to them – as Micheál Martin does – as “Sinn Féin-IRA” does absolutely nothing to advance the cause of peace in this country and undermines his own party’s role – and Bertie Ahern’s - in achieving it.

How would Martin like it if Mary Lou McDonald constantly referred to his party as “Fianna Fáil-IMF”?

All political parties have their baggage; Sinn Féin’s, to some degree, needs to be viewed in a historical context. Fianna Fáil’s troubled past is somewhat more recent and we are still living with the consequences of their shambolic handling of the economic crisis.

Micheál Martin was a leading member of that disastrous Government.