Fianna Fáil to contest elections in the North – are they serious?

» John Hedges

An Phoblacht Editor

Will Fianna Fáil support the introduction of a Border poll?

FIANNA FÁIL’S Ard Fhéis announcement last weekend that it finally intends to contest elections in the Six Counties from 2019 (more than 90 years after its foundation) has been welcomed by Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney. But he also said it is a decision that rings hollow given that the self-styled “Republican Party” only debated six motions on the North this year and these were “lumped in along with Foreign Affairs”.

Declan Kearney noted that Fianna Fáil is trying to reinvent itself after its disastrous record in government – when Mícheál Martin was a senior Fianna Fáil minister – with the Green Party and Progressive Democrats. Even more so now it’s under pressure in the South by the growing support for Sinn Féin.

The Sinn Féin leader continued in a piece written for the Belfast Telegraph:

“If Fianna Fáil is really serious, it has a lot to prove.

“As a party in government it failed to oversee full implementation of the key agreements for which it was co-guarantor.”

Other questions also arise for Fianna Fáil, Declan Kearney said, including:-

• Does it agree with welfare cuts in the North?
• Will it support the introduction of a Border poll?
• Did it even make a submission to the Haass talks process?

There is a national realignment of politics underway in Ireland, Declan Kearney said, and Fianna Fáil should be part of that, adding:

“While its leadership has a legacy of failure in government and caused much economic hardship for those least able to cope, this belated nod toward becoming a national party is to be welcomed.

“But watch this space.”