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March/April 2022 21
Kerrane replied that “Despite attempts to endow a
rather mundane committee with wide-ranging powers,
the reality is that this is an administrative sub-
committee, with no policy role and subject to the Ard
Comhairle on all matters”.
In fact most real power does lie with the Coiste
Seasta of eight. Five are Northern based. Only
Assembly member Declan Kearney is an elected
representative.
Other figures, unelected even within Sinn Féin, wield
equally disproportionate power. This was established
during the inquiry into the North’s Renewable Heat
Incentive scandal. During the crisis in the Executive
December 2017-January 2018, emails that were
disclosed showed Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir
taking guidance from Pauric Wilson, Martin Lynch and,
particularly, Ted Howell.
In an email to Howell, Ó Muilleoir wrote “there is no
further reason for me to hold up signing this business
plan…would you be content if I were to sign o the
business plan on Wednesday afternoon?”.
This was a complex decision, worth hundreds of
millions of pounds. The Assembly had already passed
the legislation, but Ó Muileoir had to sign o.
Wilson was IRA commander in the Maze prison.
Lynch has been named as a member of the IRA Army
Council. Howell holds no elected position, even within
Sinn Féin. He is one of the least-known among Ireland’s
most powerful. Howell was Gerry Adams’ most trusted
advisor. He is secretive, and even opponents concede
he is a deep thinker and personable.
In the Dáil, Sinn Féin plays the parliamentary game
well. However, there are dierences to other parties.
The party apparatus, not the TDs, recruits its sta.
There are arguments for this: other parties have used
it too frequently to create jobs for family members.
However, this power grants powers of patronage to the
unaccountable.
The backroom leadership also takes decisions
I
T WAS interesting to see the recent stando
between former Minister for Justice Michael
McDowell, and former Dublin correspondent of
the Guardian Joe Joyce on the one hand, and
Sinn Féin TD Claire Kerrane on the other, in the
often anti-Sinn Féin Irish Times.
McDowell’s repeating theme for a generation now
has been as he put it that “Sinn Féin is not, and will not
be, a conventional democratic political or parliamentary
party”. Kerrane replied that “Sinn Féin is not
“controlled from Belfast” [but] an open and
democratic political party whose leadership – Ard
Comhairle – is elected annually at our Ard Fheis”.
The truth is that its backroom leadership runs Sinn
Féin in the style of Stalin’s interpretation of democratic
centralism. Real power lies in the Coiste Seasta, and in
advisors who have no formal standing. Power has
moved to them from a withering IRA Army Council,
without transition to internal democracy.
Formally in Sinn Féin the Ard Fheis is the supreme
body, the Ard Comhairle supreme between Ard
Fheiseanna. This has 48 members, making it unwieldy.
In the Irish Times Joyce and McDowell both refer at
some length to the existence of a party business
committee, the Coiste Seasta, which manages Sinn
Féin departments such as finance, training and HR; and
where they claimed real power resides.
FF was
controlled by
developers
and FG tends
to the will
of property-
owners but
SF’s backroom
regime is even
more powerful
than those
in other big
parties.
Sinn Féin is
democriclly
cenrlised
By Anon McCbe
Actually he IRA drove Sinn Féin
o he cenre, delivering he
cesefire, decommissioning,
nd suppor for police
NEWS
22 March/April 2022
regarding the Oireachtas group. That would include
appointing government ministers if Sinn Féin goes into
government. There has to be concern if such decisions
are taken by an apparatus that is not open to scrutiny
or real democratic accountability.
All parties have unelected bodies and individuals
wielding disproportionate powers. You might argue
that Fianna Fáil was controlled by developers or that
Fine Gael often tends to the will of businesspeople and
property-owners. However, Sinn Féin claims a dierent
and radically progressive vision of society, though its
backroom regime is even more powerful than those in
other big parties.
That can be seen in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Twelve of Sinn Féin’s current 27 members were
co-opted. They include Communities Minister Deirdre
Hargey. In both Foyle and West Tyrone, co-opted Sinn
Féin members were replaced by further co-options. In
Foyle, neither Sinn Féin member elected in 2017 is now
an Assembly member.
When the Assembly was established, co-option was
introduced to protect minorities. If a member from a
minority party died or had to step down, it ensured that
party kept constituency representation.
So Sinn Féin is acting within the rules. All parties
have used co-option, but Sinn Féin much more than any
other. That is despite none of its Assembly members
having died. Voters have elected representatives;
found themselves with dierent representatives; and,
in two cases, found themselves with different
representatives again.
The problem is that the process of choosing
co-optees is not transparent.
The co-options reflect a strategy of replacing those
associated with the IRA so as to widen the party’s
electoral appeal. In the first Northern Assembly elected
in 1998, eight of 18 Sinn Féin members were former
Republican prisoners. They included Gerry Adams, who
has always denied ever being an IRA member).
Of 27 current members, five are former Republican
prisoners. Since the last Assembly election in 2017, five
former prisoners have stood down. In Northern Ireland
councils too there has been a replacement of the IRA
generation. Paradoxically, some Unionist councillors
find the replacements more dicult to deal with.
In the Republic, Sinn Féin follows a similar trajectory.
In Sinn Féin’s first electoral breakthrough in 2002, two
of five TDs were former IRA prisoners. Only one of the
current 37 TDs is a former prisoner. Most are too young
to have been involved in the IRA.
Sinn Féin is now mostly of a post-IRA generation.
Partly this is due to former IRA fighters ageing.
And to be fair, the IRA Army Council no longer plays
the role it did because IRA structures have withered. It
is 25 years since the second and final ceasefire.
Significant recruitment ended some time after that, in
the mid-noughties.
Slamming the party because the IRA Army Council
controls Sinn Féin is electorally useful for its opponents
in the Republic. In reality the IRA Army Council were the
moderates, decisive in driving Sinn Féin towards the
centre. The IRA delivered the ceasefire,
decommissioning, and support for police. Opposition
mostly came from non-IRA members of Sinn Féin. IRA
structures were used to isolate them, and frequently
force them out.
Sinn Féin support for the Special Criminal Court
indicates that the IRA is withering. The leadership
obviously does not fear any significant number of party
members appearing in the Court. It’s clever policy. In
blighted working-class areas the new stance has
populist appeal. To the middle-class and business, it
proves Sinn Féin has changed.
The two-thirds victory at the party’s Ard Fheis for
abandoning that traditional policy raises questions.
There are 74 TDs, Senators, Assembly members and
MPs. Not a single one expressed disagreement with a
fundamental reversal of policy.
That indicates the backroom leadership’s control.
This is assisted by the big reduction in the party’s
activist layer.
The general reduction in political activism partly
explains this. In the past, collecting for prisoners and
selling weekly party paper An Phoblacht required
activism. There are no longer any prisoners. An
Phoblacht went from weekly to monthly to online. Party
representative, though disciplined enough not to drink
in the Dáil bar, have stopped taking only the average
industrial wage as salary.
Perceived dissenters have been culled. Aontú’s
founder Peadar Tóibín’s dissent on abortion led to his
exit from the party. Twice suspended, he said
“restrictions imposed on him by the party over his
views on abortion had prevented me from fully
representing my constituents”.
While the party is tightly unified on an All-Ireland
basis, the perception is the Northerners are stronger
on organisation, the Southerners on policy
development.
Its presence in two states puts the party structure
under conflicting pressures: in the North it presents as
a fiscally responsible party of government, in the
Republic as an embodiment of left-wing protest.
According to the rules, parliamentarians are not
allowed public disagreement. Even opponents concede
this has advantages: you might not like it, but you know
what you get.
The diculty is that rules cannot make disagreement
disappear, nor prevent it exploding destructively. A
post-IRA Sinn Féin is sailing into uncharted waters.
Diering views are inevitable. Whether Sinn Féin can
adjust to their expression remains to be seen.
For this piece, Village has twice asked Sinn Féin’s
press oce for a list of Coiste Seasta members. At time
of going to press it has not been provided.
Anton McCabe is an Omagh-based journalist, one of the
Northern Ireland representatives for the National Union
of Journalists and a member of Militant Left.
Real power lies in
he Coise Ses,
nd in dvisors
who hve no
forml snding.
Power hs moved
o hem from
wihering IRA
Army Council,
wihou rnsiion
o inernl
democrcy
Centrlised
