IF Sinn Féin hoped the fully-justified furore over the slew of self-inflicted scandals which have engulfed it in recent weeks would have started to fade by now, it was profoundly wrong.
Instead the party’s contorted attempts to explain its handling of the Michael McMonagle sex abuser affair and, this week, its approach to allegations against Niall Ó Donnghaile have raised more credibility-eroding questions about the party’s governance.
It is alarming, for example, that even when Mr Ó Donnghaile had been suspended from the party on September 13 2023, Sinn Féin continued to present him as its Seanad leader. It continued to do so until last December, when he publicly resigned from the Seanad on health grounds.
At that time, Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald gave Mr Ó Donnghaile a glowing valedictory tribute, with no hint that he was leaving under the shadow of a dark cloud of unsavoury complaints about inappropriate messages. That misled not only the public but also the Oireachtas - no small thing for a party in government in Belfast and which wants to be in Dublin.
Sinn Féin’s political opponents have understandably seized on this. Tánaiste Micheál Martin said it had “failed to tell the truth” while the DUP leader Gavin Robinson spoke of “apparent cover-up”. Only the most myopic Sinn Féin supporter could disagree with those assessments.
As we have seen in the past in other institutions, from the Catholic Church to the BBC, which have become ensnared in these sorts of scandals, it is the unravelling of the attempted cover-up which can prove most damaging to an organisation’s reputation.
Sinn Féin now finds itself in a maze of its own making. There was no-one forcing two of its press officers to provide references to a charity for McMonagle, another party press officer it stopped employing because of paedophilia allegations. No-one else stopped it from alerting the British Heart Foundation of the concerns about McMonagle. No-one else made Ms McDonald lavish such unambiguously positive praise on Mr Ó Donnghaile when he ‘publicly’ resigned. And so it goes on.
Fully and transparently addressing these scandals and convincing the public that Sinn Féin means what it says when it declares - as Ms McDonald told the Dáil on Tuesday - “nothing is more important that protecting the safety and wellbeing of children” will be a real test of leadership for Ms McDonald and Michelle O’Neill.
That means answering the numerous questions that remain outstanding - for example, around McMonagle’s Sinn Féin salary - as well as those arising from the controversy surrounding Laois TD Brian Stanley’s mysterious departure from the party.
Until then, Sinn Féin’s statements and actions will be subject to sceptical scrutiny.
