An independent candidate who is opposing Gerry Adams in west Belfast because of continuing IRA punishment attacks met the Tánaiste and opposition political leaders in Dublin yesterday to highlight his campaign.
Dr Liam Kennedy said yesterday that the regular shootings and assaults by the IRA in west Belfast contradicted Mr Adams's public statements of opposition to this practice. "Mr Adams has been the MP for eight years and the position hasn't improved", he said.
Dr Kennedy, professor of economic and social history at Queen's University Belfast, has been heavily involved in peace and anti-violence activity and community groups for the past 15 years. He was accompanied to Dublin yesterday by Michael Gallagher, chairman of the Omagh Support and Self Help Group set up in the wake of the bombing of that town.
Both men met the Tánaiste Ms Harney yesterday morning before holding separate meetings in the afternoon with the Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, the Labour leader Pat Rabbitte and the Green Party leader Trevor Sargent.
Dr Kennedy told The Irish Times yesterday that when he ran for Westminster in 1997, he went to Mr Adams's campaign launch and asked him about the continued occurrence of IRA punishment beatings and shootings in the constituency. "He assured me that he and the republican movement were totally opposed to such practices, and that he believed they were counter-productive." He says Mr Adams response was long and considered, and "I believed him".
"But eight years later I am asking how one explains the gap between the rhetoric and the street level reality. Mr Adams has been the MP for eight years and the position hasn't improved. If Sinn Féin were genuinely committed to ending these practices the evidence would be there.
"But the evidence is quite to the contrary, and if we can't trust Adams and Sinn Féin on something that directly affects their own community - and Robert McCartney was one of their own voters - can we trust Adams and Sinn Féin on some of their other promises?" he asked.
Mr Kennedy and his supporters have organised a debate in Belfast's Europa Hotel this morning on the issue of human rights abuses in west Belfast. The SDLP and unionist parties have agreed to attend, but Sinn Féin has not, he said.
Mr Kennedy ran in the same constituency in 1997. However, a week before the poll he announced that he wanted anyone considering supporting him to vote instead for the SDLP's Dr Joe Hendron, who was then believed (wrongly) to have had some chance of defeating Mr Adams.