A chara, - Despite repeated denials to the effect that Republican Sinn Fein has no "military wing", your Security Correspondent persists in saying so (The Irish Times, November 17th).
Yet again we reiterate that we have no "military wing" nor are we the "political wing" of any other body. Your Security Correspondent chooses to ignore such statements by us, which is not what we have come to expect from The Irish Times.
He also described Republican Sinn Fein as a "splinter group", showing a certain bias against us. When we withdrew from the Mansion House, Dublin, in November 1986 and continued the Ard-Fheis elsewhere we took with us intact the Sinn Fein constitution.
That constitution had been broken in the Mansion House and in accordance with it we continued the organisation as Republican Sinn Fein.
Further, our stand in 1986 was not a "challenge to the authority" of Mr Adams. It was simply an organised opposition - for the fifth time since the early 1920s - to an attempt to convert a revolutionary national liberation organisation into a constitutional political party.
We still adhere to the Sinn Fein Constitution. Others do not although they have appropriated our name. Our recent Ard-Fheis was the 93rd annual conference of Sinn Fein. Your Security Correspondent should not take sides in this ongoing dispute. - Is mise,
President, Republican Sinn Fein, Parnell Street, Dublin 1.