Hi °C | Lo °C A major cross-party political backlash is developing over the "sham" apology by the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams last week over the manslaughter of Garda Jerry McCabe.
The vociferous support accorded by Mr Adams and Sinn Fein to the killers is, alongside the murder of Jean McConville, the single mother of 10 children, one of the legacy issues that has plagued Sinn Fein's attempt to cultivate the image of being a fully constitutional party.
Initially TDs were shocked into silence by the effrontery of the decision by Sinn Fein to capitalise on the murder of Garda Adrian Donohoe in order to put the McCabe killing to bed.
However, over the weekend a growing number of TDs have voiced their disgust.
Speaking to the Sunday Independent, the Fine Gael Junior Minister Fergus O'Dowd, a constituency colleague of Mr Adams, slammed the "hypocrisy" of the move.
He noted: "Sinn Fein, the IRA and the culture of lawlessness, the gun culture and the culture of death which they promulgated for political and personal gain are far more responsible for the death of Garda Adrian Donohoe than the closure of any garda stations."
His FG colleague, party chairperson Charles Flanagan, was equally critical of the "Sinn Fein sham apology".
Mr Flanagan said that "clarification" was needed from Mr Adams on a number of issues in the wake of his statement.
In particular, Mr Flanagan said, "if his apology is to be any way meaningful, it must be accompanied by full disclosure about how intimately Mr Adams was involved with the highest levels of the IRA".
Mr Adams, said Mr Flanagan, also "has to come clean on numerous atrocities and specific issues such as the death of Jean McConville".
Mr Flanagan added that "failure to do so would mean that what Mr Adams has engaged in is nothing more than a Sinn Fein sham apology''.
The Fianna Fail Justice spokesperson Niall Collins said that "people in Limerick are repulsed by this non-apology. They know all too well the thuggery and intimidation Sinn Fein used to protect their special friends after the murder of Detective McCabe."
Mr Collins also slammed the Sinn Fein leader's use of "the expressions of sympathy for the death of a guard for political advantage; as a way of cleansing and rewriting history''.
Mr Collins asked "what outside of the desire for political place and preferment has changed since Sinn Fein celebrated these murderers as heroes to the point of according them special status and privileges at their Ard Fheis"?
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The FF spokesperson also noted that Mr Adams had incorrectly called the shooting of Jerry McCabe "a killing, it was not that, it was murder. Once again Mr Adams is playing fast and loose with words."
Mr Collins also noted of Sinn Fein's ongoing defence of the murder of RUC officers that "it is a strange sort of All Ireland party that applies such double standards to the lives of police officers on different parts of the Border".
Meanwhile, Labour TD Arthur Spring, whose uncle played a major role in the peace process, said the apology was just another example of how "on every occasion in the history of the State when decisions of enormous importance have had to be taken SF got it wrong''.
He said: "Be it Sunningdale, or the pursuit of a 32-county Republic through brutal murder and violence before they did a U-turn, or Europe, or corporation tax where they also did a U-turn or the bank guarantee where they also did a U-turn or the IMF bailout where they also did a U-turn, SF consistently get it wrong."
Mr Spring also slammed the attempt by "Adams to apologise on behalf of Republicans. I consider myself a Republican and I will not let Sinn Fein commandeer the flag for their pursuit of political gain and personal ambition."
He warned that "politics is too serious a business to allow the governance of a country to be handed over to such a party".
Mr Spring noted the "the Dail was stunned into silence at the audacity with which Sinn Fein used the great national outpouring of sympathy and allegiance to the gardai over the death of Adrian Donohoe as cover for a tainted apology that is neither consistent nor honest".
Irish Independent
