Party politics cause a stir

BY JOANNE CORCORAN

Margaret Adams

The debate around Party Development proved one of the most interesting at this year's Ard Fheis, and this can be seen in the number of motions actually lost in the section.

Delegates queued patiently, as one by one they argued points on elections, potential coalitions, Ard Fheis organisation, internal education, party officials, terminology and An Phoblacht.

Ray McHugh from the Charlie McGlade Cumann in Drimnagh was one of the first speakers to the podium and spoke to motion 353 on the party's use of unionised premises.

"My pet hate is non-unionised businesses," the longtime trade union man said. "I've seen many strikes and once stood in support of the workers outside the Royal Dublin Hotel, protesting for better wages," he said, referring to the hotel in Dublin that, in the past, has been used for party functions.

Ray McHugh

"The management's response to the strike was to bring in non-unionised foreign students to take the workers' jobs," McHugh said.

He called on Sinn Féin members organising social events to, where possible, give preference to unionised premises. The motion was passed.

Louth TD Arthur Morgan also spoke to the motions on trade unions and called on any union members in the hall to take the time to contribute to the work the party is doing in this area.

"I also want to call on all SIPTU members to make sure that they are not making financial contributions to the Labour Party in their SIPTU contributions," he said.

Ard Chomhairle member Oliver Bradley spoke to motion 326, which called for the decentralisation of the party's Elections Department from Dublin to Galway, in order to assist with the development of the region's cuige.

"We talk about North and South when we discuss partition, but we forget to mention East and West," he said.

"We've been calling for the Dublin Government to decentralise departments from Dublin and now we need to start practising what we preach," he added.

Vice President Pat Doherty argued against the motion, saying it wasn't the job of the Elections Department to develop cuigí.

"Anyhow, we're probably the most decentralised department in the country," he said. "We don't have a huge amount of personnel, but we're on the road day and night to different parts of the country."

His argument convinced the delegates and the motion was lost.

Doherty also argued against motion 359, calling on heads of departments and members of the party's national executive to be active members of their local cumainn and to be answerable to their local chomhairlí ceantair. Doherty said while it was a good thing for all party members to be cumann members, cumainn had to be realistic about how much time department heads and so on could dedicate to cumann work. He also pointed out that they were already answerable to the Coiste Seasta and party Officer Board.

This motion was also lost.

Tyrone MLA Francie Molloy called for the adoption of motion 356, which would allow party PAs to run for council seats, and keep both jobs.

"Imagine if the civil service was saying an employee couldn't be a councillor or would have to leave their job to be one," he said.

Six-County Cúige Chair Declan Kearney argued against the motion, saying that it was much better to have 20 PAs dedicated to a specific role and councillors dedicated to their roles, and the motion was lost.

"The party can only properly plan resources on a case by case basis," he said. "This would be a retrograde step."

Party Treasurer Margaret Adams spoke for an amendment to motion 354, which called on Sinn Féin members to only use airlines that had recognised trade unions when travelling on official party business. Adams said the motion was just not possible in its present form and argued successfully for "where at all possible" to be added at the end.

Cavan/Monaghan TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin also argued successfully for an amendment to motion 344, which wanted the party to rule out coalition with any party unless Sinn Féin's core policies were to the forefront.

"Don't limit our options," he urged delegates. "Keep them all guessing."

Ó Caoláin said people elected the party in the expectation that it would do whatever possible to get its policies implemented.

"A full delegate conference will determine our position after the next general election," he said. He added that he had been asked recently if, at this stage, there was any party Sinn Féin would rule out going into coalition with.

"I said at this stage we would rule out all the parties," he said, to loud applause.

Ó Caoláin continued to entertain the delegates.

"He pressed me further and asked if we would rule out the PDs. I said our hope is that the electorate will rule out the PDs."

Motion 344 was lost.

Leinster House co-ordinator and former An Phoblacht editor Michéal Mac Donncha spoke to the motions concerning the paper.

"We have a political strategy based on getting our message to people directly," he said. "One of our most important resources is the paper."

Mac Donncha also slammed the Evening Herald for its recent vicious attacks on republicans and urged everybody present to boycott the paper by not buying it and not using it for notices.

"Let's hit O'Reilly and his ragsheet in the pocket, where it really hurts," he said.

Rita O'Hare

Another former editor of the paper, Rita O'Hare, spoke to motion 340, which called for the retention of the name An Phoblacht/Republican News.

O'Hare said a lot of work had been done to revamp and relaunch the paper and one of the decisions made had been to drop Republican News from the title and put Sinn Féin somewhere on the front.

"We have 342,000 supporters and the sales of the paper don't reflect that," O'Hare said. "We have to become more competitive and use whatever means are at our disposal to do so. One of those means is the name Sinn Féin."

The motion was defeated.