The appointment of Frank Connolly as Head of Communications of Siptu, the country's largest trade union, is another significant political act in this time of nothing but significant political acts.

Official from next month, the appointment is not simply run-of-the-mill, that of a former journalist, struggling to find regular work, moving by necessity into the world of public relations -- officially to the dark side, as it were -- worthy only of a few paragraphs on an inside page of The Irish Times.

It is, to my mind, part of a grand design, a crucial part at that; a strategy which, I suspect, is being worked on behind the scenes, the effect, to elevate socialist republicanism to a pre-eminent position at the Cabinet table.

In these turbulent times, when old certainties are no longer so certain, when, in fact, they have been ripped to shreds, such an outcome is no longer the stuff of bedsit politics, but is, as the elections this weekend will bear out, an ever increasing reality.

I write on Friday, as the votes are being cast. By the time you read this, Fianna Fail will be the big losers, Fine Gael the big winners, but Labour and Sinn Fein will have made impressive gains, consolidating a left wing bloc to rival and even outstrip the two main parties.

Labour will hope to forge ahead from here, its eye on the big prize, the prospect of government with Fine Gael still on the minds of its grandees, the likes of Proinsias de Rossa, for example, as he chinwags over canapes at the south Dublin home of his pal Des Geraghty.

There is an even more ambitious project afoot, though, which perhaps de Rossa and Geraghty and even Eamon Gilmore are missing, but which they should be more cognisant of, and which is the formation of a Labour and Sinn Fein axis, to enter government with, or as its architects would prefer, without Fine Gael.

Its architect-in-chief, Jack O'Connor, the general president of Siptu, is a member of the Labour Party, but is, perhaps, philosophically closer to his brothers and sisters in Sinn Fein; it is also aided and abetted by many within the trade union movement and several within Labour itself, those who were not members of Democratic Left.

In recent months, the Siptu president has gone out of his way to embrace Sinn Fein, granting interviews to its newspaper, An Phoblacht, and attending its events, most prominently at the Mansion House recently, when Sinn Fein sought to hijack the State's celebration of the 90th anniversary of the first Dail.

At that event, in a "spirit of unity", O'Connor was presented with a portrait of socialist hero James Connolly by Sinn Fein's leader in the Dail, Caoimhghin O Caolain.

Shortly before that love-in, at Sinn Fein's Ard Fheis in February, Gerry Adams gave expression to his belief that an opportunity existed to topple the old order, if Sinn Fein could develop links with Labour, the Greens, trade unions and a plethora of community organisations around the country.

Fianna Fail's replacement by Fine Gael "would be like replacing Tweedledum with Tweedledee", he said, as he urged Labour to prop up neither Fianna Fail nor Fine Gael but to explore instead "the potential for co-operation in the future".

Jack O'Connor, the Labour Party member, was lauded that night as he -- the only senior union leader to so do -- arrived fresh from the Dublin city centre protests that were held against the pension levy and recession.

The appointment of Frank Connolly, therefore, to a powerful position as not only the mouthpiece of Jack O'Connor's Siptu, but also as its eyes and ears, in fact, as a general adviser, is in my view a significant move in the ongoing project to more closely align Labour and Sinn Fein.

In a way, Connolly's move to outright political activism was inevitable.

As a journalist he had become a story; in fact, with his every move, he had become the story, drawing upon himself a level of controversy equal to, if not greater than, the subjects he had chosen to report upon.

A character aloof, taciturn and sulky, though with a certain icy charm, the whiff of sulphur which surrounds Connolly did not prevent the Mail group -- recently the only mainstream media to do so -- from embracing him at a distance in the pursuit of market share.

Connolly's heyday was, perhaps, during his years at the Sunday Business Post, under the republican-leaning editorship of Damien Kiberd, where his stalking of former Minister Ray Burke was productive and rightly admired.

It began to fall apart, though, when Kiberd felt it necessary to publish an apology to the former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, arising out of an article by Connolly, based primarily upon the bogus recollections of the fantasist Denis 'Starry' O'Brien.

All journalists can make mistakes, particularly those who live on the edge, as Connolly does. It was his other alleged activities, rather, which effectively finished him as a journalist.

In 2005, the then Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, availed of an opportunity presented in the Dail by Independent TD Finian McGrath, to burst open a story which had been quietly doing the rounds for a while.

The following portion of McDowell's statement is worth publishing: "I am informed by An Garda Siochana that following the arrest in August 2001 of James Monaghan, Martin McAuley and Niall Connolly -- who became known as the 'Colombia Three' -- the Colombian authorities had established that on April 10, 2001, three people in possession of false Irish passports had earlier entered the Farc-controlled region in Colombia. The three persons who entered in April were subsequently identified as Frank Connolly, Niall Connolly and Padraig Wilson.

"Niall Connolly, who was identified as being part of both parties, is the brother of Frank Connolly and was described by the government of Cuba in August 2001 as the official Sinn Fein representative to the Cuban government and as resident in Havana.

"The garda authorities have informed me that they are fully satisfied as to the accuracy of the identification of all the members of both parties.

"I do not propose to rehearse here the gravity of the charges against the 'Colombia Three' but it clearly strains credulity to suggest that the two visits were unconnected.

"This is all the more so when the persons on both trips had access to false passports which could only have been obtained in such quantities as part of a well-organised sinister enterprise.

"Niall Connolly, the brother of Frank Connolly, travelled on both occasions on a false passport.

"I do not accept that the purpose of the visit on either occasion was to study the peace process in Colombia.

"Padraig Wilson was a known senior IRA member and has been convicted in Northern Ireland of explosives offences and conspiracy to murder, and of IRA membership.

"James Monaghan was a known senior IRA member and has been convicted of numerous explosives and firearms offences, in this jurisdiction and in the UK, and of IRA membership.

"Martin McAuley was a known IRA member and has been convicted of possession of a firearm.

"On the basis of intelligence reports furnished to me, the visits appear to have been connected with an arrangement whereby the Provisional IRA furnished know-how in the use of explosives.

"The consideration received by the Provisional IRA under the arrangement is believed to be the payment of a large amount of money by Farc, which finances its activities by its control of the cocaine trade in the area of Colombia which it controls.

"I am aware that -- despite the commitment of the Centre for Public Inquiry to 'independently promote the highest standards of integrity, ethics and accountability' -- Mr Connolly has proved very reticent in answering any detailed questions about the subject of his presence in Colombia."

As controversy raged, Connolly was forced to finally address the issue. He issued a statement: "Since 2002 false allegations have appeared in certain elements of the media, chiefly those controlled by Independent News and Media, asserting that I had travelled to Colombia using false travel documents.

"When and where I felt it appropriate I have issued forthright denials of these false and malicious statements.

"The campaign of vilification descended to a more vicious level since my appointment as Executive Director of The Centre for Public Inquiry."

The Centre for Public Inquiry loftily styled itself as a body to independently promote the highest standards of integrity, ethics and accountability across Irish public and business life and to investigate and publicise breaches of those standards where they arise.

Connolly was subsequently interviewed by Sean O'Rourke on RTE radio, when the following exchange took place:

-- Have you visited Colombia?

-- No.

-- Ever?

-- No.

-- And then so you're saying the question of you being in Colombia in possession of a false passport, is irrelevant?

-- Is false.

-- When you were being questioned by gardai in relation to all of this did they show you any documentation or picture purporting to be your picture?

-- Of course they showed me documentation and what I have said from that time onwards is that, and this is three-and-a-half years ago, it had nothing to do with me.

-- Did they show you a picture that was a picture of you?

-- Well I'm not going to discuss firstly what happened in my discussions with the gardai, but I think you could fairly make that assumption, yes. And what I'm saying is that I have disputed and denied that I had anything to do with this alleged false passport.

-- Was it your picture?

-- That I saw? That was shown to me? Absolutely not.

When asked specifically what he had been doing at the time he was alleged to be in Colombia, Connolly said: "When the DPP, if he ever does, decides to forward a case against me, I will deal with all the issues. I'm not going to be interrogated as if I was in a garda station on an RTE programme." As a line of defence, I recall, it was similar to that exercised by Gerry Adams when he was robustly questioned by Jeremy Paxman on BBC's Newsnight several years ago.

Connolly's refusal to allow himself be closely questioned is in marked contrast to his role, as a journalist, to raise questions, relevant or not, about other well known public figures.

So as Jack O'Connor now waltzes in and out of Government Buildings, to negotiate on behalf of the working man, it will be an irony of sorts if the media decides to ask questions about Connolly's communicative role in all of this, his influence over important decisions in the future, his level of access to the corridors of power, the quality of inside information coming his way.

Although a file in relation to Connolly's alleged use of a false passport was sent to the DPP, a case was never brought against him. His supporters saw it as vindication, but the question marks over the affairs took its toll.

The Centre for Public Inquiry, funded to the tune of €4m over five years by Atlantic Philanthropies, collapsed when Chuck Feeney, the Irish-American businessman and billionaire philanthropist, pulled the plug after being briefed by McDowell on the garda investigation, the gardai who McDowell had said in the Dail were "fully satisfied" that Frank Connolly had indeed been to Colombia.

In its time, the centre produced two reports, one on what it called, 'The Great Corrib Gas Controversy', a project which would supply a significant portion of the country's natural gas needs over the coming years and which is currently providing around 1,000 badly needed jobs on site in Mayo, most of them union jobs, and will guarantee at least 150 jobs over the long term.

The conclusions of the centre's report, according to Connolly, raised "serious questions about the manner in which the Corrib gas project has proceeded in relation to its planning and legislative aspects".

In the past, he has also attended fundraising events for the Shell-to-Sea campaign, a cause which, in the eyes of many, has been irredeemably compromised by the alleged involvement of subversive elements.

His appointment, therefore, to such an important position in the country's largest trade union -- its very existence to secure jobs for the working man -- may now raise eyebrows among the decent, card-carrying members of Siptu who, each week or month, subscribe part of their wages to pay the comfortable €80,000-a-year salary of their controversial new Head of Communications.