IRA2
I am a republican who believes in a united Ireland, says McDowell
(Valerie Robinson, Irish News)
Michael McDowell’s official title in the Irish government is minister
for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, but he has adopted the
unofficial role of Sinn Féin’s most strident critic. He tells
Southern Correspondent Valerie Robinson that it is time Ireland put
political violence behind it.
Michael McDowell has earned a reputation as the most outspoken Irish
government minister in relation to the peace process, as well as the
role Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA have to play.
Since his appointment as minister for justice, equality and law
reform, the Dubliner has launched a series of blistering attacks on
the republican movement, accusing both the IRA and Sinn Féin of
benefiting from criminal activities and failing to adhere to the
principles of the Good Friday Agreement.
In response, Sinn Féin has repeatedly accused the minister
of “electioneering”, as its support has grown on both sides of the
border, and of efforts to “demonise” the party.
However, Mr McDowell remains unrepentant, arguing that there is no
place for a party in Irish society that “mixes politics with
violence”.
During an interview with the Irish News at his St Stephen’s Green
office, the minister is keen to stress his northern family and
political roots, a mix of Catholic and Protestant lineage.
His great grandfather William McDowell was editor of the Belfast
Morning News, a predecessor of the Irish News, in the nineteenth
century before moving to Dublin to work on the Freeman’s Journal.
His grandfather was Eoin MacNeill, born in Glenarm, Co Antrim, co-
founder of the Gaelic League and founder of the Irish Volunteers.
MacNeill also served as minister for finance and education in the
first and second Dails.
Conceding that his family’s past must colour his political outlook,
the minister said: “I am almost 100% Northern Ireland and I would say
a good 50% Presbyterian.”
His family had mixed experiences in the six counties, one branch, the
Moores, who were Catholic, are recorded as having their Ballymena
home “ritually stoned” every July 12.
The minister is also a cousin of famous Belfast author Brian Moore
who died in 1999.
Mr McDowell, a barrister by training, saw his own political career
resemble a graph of peaks and troughs, from the central role he
played in helping Des O’Malley found the Progressive Democrats in
1985, to the loss of his Dail seat in the 1989 general election after
just two years.
He was made chairman of the party and regained his seat in 1992 but
lost it again in 1997. Two years later, he was appointed attorney
general, a post in which he served until his re-election to the Dail
in 2002, when Taoiseach Bertie Ahern appointed him as justice
minister to replace John O’Donoghue.
During his time on the PD frontbench he has also served as spokesman
for Northern Ireland and foreign affairs.
He describes himself as “a republican who believes in a united
Ireland. I don’t believe in the border. I believe the only way to
live up to the philosophy of the Good Friday Agreement is by bringing
about unity by consent. The logic of the tricolour is to reconcile
the orange and the green.”
It seems apparent that Mr McDowell also believes that his strong
northern links give him a keen insight into the ‘northern debate’,
perhaps giving him an edge over other political colleagues whose
roots are firmly planted in the Republic.
That may explain his unrelenting belief that Sinn Féin is skating on
very thin ice when in the face of criticism it claims to be a
democratic party.
“The problem is that it is a central belief of the Provisional
movement that the IRA’s army council is the body discharging the
power of government of the Irish people,” he said, arguing that
republicans have been given “every possible accommodation” to make
the transition he said, to full democracy, but have remained wedded
to their own beliefs.
Recently, he rejected the IRA army council’s view of itself as
the “supreme lawful authority” in Ireland as a “fanciful” notion,
claiming they are trapped in a “time warp” that offers no opportunity
for progress.
He has also refused to accept the argument that Sinn Féin’s leaders
act as a “conduit to harder-line people”.
It is these kind of statements that has led Sinn Féin to claim that
its critics, specifically the justice minister, think only of “short-
term political gain”, insisting that voters don’t fall for “cheap
shots”.
The Northern Bank robbery has once again focused attention on both
sides of the border on Sinn Féin’s relationship with the IRA.
With the taoiseach publicly naming the Provisionals as the chief
suspects behind the Belfast raid and basing his allegations on
security information from the gardai and the PSNI, the peace process
has been brought to a grinding halt, with claims and counter-claims
flying in both directions.
The Cabinet yesterday considered the report of the International
Monitoring Commission (IMC) on the robbery. It is widely speculated
that the report, which is due to be made public tomorrow places full
blame on the IRA for the raid and recommends sanctions against Sinn
Féin.
However, Mr McDowell has said that political sanctions are not the
way to go, instead he believes “very strongly in the sanction of
political opinion”, with voters having the most decisive say.
Referring to comments by the Catholic Primate of All Ireland Dr Sean
Brady, he said: “There is no longer any mandate for the use of
violence or the threat of violence.”
In a homily last week, Dr Brady said “no warped moral logic can ever
regard activities such as armed robbery, racketeering and maiming as
anything other than gravely contrary to the common good and therefore
criminal, sinful and a constant threat to justice and peace”.
Mr McDowell said that Sinn Féin’s past successes at the polls were
based on voters’ belief that the IRA would “give up violence”, but
now they are “wrecking the Good Friday Agreement by their failure to
deliver on that commitment”.
He rejected the suggestion that the Irish government was in danger of
alienating republicans by coming down hard on Sinn Féin,
adding: “There is no question of us coming down hard on anybody. The
government is doing the exact opposite.”
Unwilling to speculate on the outcome of the upcoming Westminster
elections, the minister said he was not in favour of a “first past
the post system”, favouring instead the proportional representation
system that “gives minorities fair representation”.
The PR system has ensured that the political landscape in the
Republic is not exclusively dominated by Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to
the benefit of parties such as the Progressive Democrats and Sinn
Féin.
Mr McDowell stands firm in his assertion that he is acting on “very
good information” when he accuses the Provisionals of involvement in
criminality - a claim that continues to spark a furious reaction from
Sinn Féin.
In an interview with the Irish News last year, Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou
McDonald, accused her party’s accusers, particularly Mr McDowell, of
trying “try-ons or political tactics”.
She insisted that Sinn Féin did not tolerate crime, adding that if
there was any evidence of criminal activity then those responsible
should be “prosecuted through the normal channels”.
But the minister pointed out that there had been a series of major
robberies throughout Ireland that have been linked to the IRA by
gardai or the PSNI.
He also repeated a claim that a number of major crimes in the
Republic, including the theft of “high value goods” were organised
last year by the “adjutant of the IRA’s Belfast brigade”.
“I went public on that and got the usual rubbish but that criminality
stopped when it came under the spotlight.”
Describing the murder of Robert McCartney outside a Belfast bar and
the subsequent attacks on PSNI officers in the Markets area
as “sinister”, the minister said: “This kind of thing is not
acceptable north or south of the Border. The only way to stop it is
if people say that it is unacceptable.”
“Republicans are not being forced into a corner. Robbing banks or
high value goods isn’t putting them in a corner. Breaking young men’s
legs or shooting them in the hands must stop. [Punishment attacks]
are not a cultural thing, they are criminality.”
The gardai and the PSNI have developed a “very good” working
relationship in recent years, working together to tackle cross-border
crime, he says.
Mr McDowell and the Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy will be in Belfast
later this month to sign a protocol for the transfer of officers
between the two forces.
The joint PSNI and Garda investigation into the 1998 Omagh bombings
has yet to see the bombers brought to justice.
Investigators and relatives suffered a blow when the conviction of
Dundalk man Colm Murphy was quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
He is currently on bail awaiting retrial.
It has also been marred by the news last month that two Garda
detectives involved in the early investigation into the bombing are
to be tried for perjury.
Mr McDowell refused to comment on either case as they are due to come
before the courts but said he remained “hopeful” that the bombers
would one day be brought to justice.
“I hope they will be brought to justice but as time goes by it
becomes more difficult. It was a horrific crime and I have to
congratulate the gardai for their actions in preventing equally large
bombings.
“Dissidents operate on the same basis as the Provisionals – that all
of this is justified, that it is wrong but not criminal to blow 30
people apart.”
He went on to criticise the claim by Sinn Féin representative Mitchel
McLaughlin that the IRA’s 1972 murder of widowed mother-of-10 Jean Mc-
Conville was not a crime, as “lunacy”.
And he stressed that the IRA killers of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe,
gunned down during a botched robbery in Co Limerick in 1996, would
not be freed from prison early.
The controversial non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin, set up
at the beginning of the Troubles, looks set to continue during Mr
McDowell’s term as justice minister or “as long as there is a
significant paramilitary presence in Ireland that is willing to
intimidate jurors and witnesses”.
Mr McDowell believes that it is now up to voters to decide the future
of Northern Ireland and the peace process, saying that they
must “stand up for democracy” and heed the words of Dr Brady if a
lasting resolution to the Troubles is to be secured.
February 10, 2005
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'So venceremos, beidh bua againn eigin lá eigin. Sealadaigh abú.'
--Bobby Sands