Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said the “Free State establishment” needs to move on from holding her party accountable for the actions of the Provisional IRA during the Troubles.
She suggested in a podcast interview it was not rational or fair to raise Provisional IRA actions with party members who were children or not alive when the actions took place.
Podcast presenter Joe Brolly raised what he called the “continued demonisation” of Sinn Féin and suggested that party members were forced to defend the actions of the Provos in the 1970s.
She responded by stating there was a “reluctance on the part of the Free State establishment to move on”.
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“You don’t ask somebody who was a baby in the 1970s about something that happened in the 1970s. That’s not a reasonable proposition. You wouldn’t ask it of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or the Labour Party.
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“It is not reasonable to approach people from Sinn Féin in that way. We can debate history. We can talk about the past.”
Ms McDonald said she was “conscious of the hurt that was done” during the Troubles by the Provisional IRA, but is proud to be an Irish republican.
She also claimed Sinn Féin is held to higher standards of accountability in the Republic.
The resignation of TD Patricia Ryan in Kildare North because she was to go in front of a contested convention got a lot more coverage than the resignation of two Fianna Fáil senior politicians last week “and there wasn’t a whisper of it”, she told the Free State podcast which is hosted by Brolly and Dion Fanning.
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