Léargas

Climate change is one of the defining challenges facing our society today. Consequently next Monday’s climate change conference in Paris, which will see representatives from almost 200 states across the globe participate, is of huge importance. The conference will run from November 30^th to December 11^th.

Far from focussing only on environmental issues around stabilising the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere - it is in reality a critical political and security negotiation about the future – including the island of Ireland.I believe that the Paris conference has to be about citizen’s fundamental human rights over the vested interests of big business or individual States.

Climate change has often seemed for many, a scientific debate and phenomena far removed from most ordinary people's everyday reality – until now.

Several weeks ago representatives from the Pacific islands met in Fiji. They warned of the danger of large parts of their landmass disappearing in the coming decades.

They have also warned of the re-emergence of diseases which create significant health challenges, malaria, typhoid, dengue fever, and a range of diarrhoea linked illnesses. The World Health Organisation expects around 250,000 deaths globally as a consequences of this and climate change.

The Fiji foreign Minister put it bluntly: “Unless the world acts decisively in the coming weeks to begin addressing the greatest challenge of our age, then the Pacific, as we know it is doomed”.

The reason for this concern is justified. NASA recently revealed that the world’s sea level has already risen nearly 8 cms since 1992. The United Nations has estimated that a metre or more is now expected by the end of the century.

According to a recent analysis by the research group Climate Central a two Celsius increase in the world’s temperature will see 130 million people around the world lose their homes. If the temperature increase reaches four degrees Celsius that number could reach 600 million. Belfast and Dublin would effectively disappear.

For low lying areas of the world, around the coasts of countless states, including this island, the impact of rising temperatures is enormous. It is not just about flooding. It is also about coastal erosion and saltwater getting into the water table. It’s about hurricanes and cyclones and storms in greater ferocity than ever witnessed before.

While I was in Cuba recently every government Minister I spoke to expressed their concern at climate change, including the problems of drought which is affecting part of the Caribbean island.

Under the EU Commission’s ‘Energy and Climate Package’ of 2008 the 26 counties is required to deliver a 20% reduction in non-Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. This was not an ambitious target. But it was crucially important.

The European Environment Agency has reported in recent weeks that while the EU is expected to exceed its 2020 reduction targets the south will not and will be lucky to achieve half of this. In the Irish state more than 30% of Greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, the single biggest contributor to overall emissions, followed by energy and transport at around 21% each.

The challenge is to decarbonise the economy in the short to medium term and phase out the use of fossil fuels.

The island of Ireland is already experiencing significant climate change. Six of the warmest years we have experienced have occurred in the last 25 years. There has been a reduction in the number of frost days and a shortening of the frost season.

We have witnessed an increase in the annual rainfall in northern and western areas with decreases or small increases in the south and east. These changes will impact on our natural environment and on agriculture. The increasing acidification of the ocean will also impact on our marine economy.

Scientists are predicting that Ireland faces not just a rise in sea level but water shortages, adverse impacts on water quality and changes in the distribution of plant and animal species.

An ambitious deal in Paris is therefore very much in all our interests.

Rising temperatures are changing our global weather systems undermining the ecosystems on which life itself depends. While the threat posed by climate change to our food security or public health here at home compared to those countries ravaged by drought, hurricane storms, extreme flooding and disease is hugely different, we too are becoming more alert to the effects of climate change and what action we must take for the future.

Many Irish citizens are doing so for instance by generating their own renewable energy sources to heat and light their homes, or even the use of new electric cars as their mode of transport. Solar panels on the roofs of houses would once have been the exception. Now they are an integral part of planning.

In the two small economies on this island we have an opportunity to develop new business models and technologies which will be increasingly required to drive decarbonisation across the globe. This also offers us the opportunity to create new jobs as well as driving competitiveness and exports, innovation, energy security and reducing expenditure on imported fossil fuels.

How to power Ireland with clean renewable energy and transition our transport systems to electricity and gas, how to continue to improve our agriculture, protect our fisheries, expand our forests and natural resources are all critical to how we now adapt to a changing global environment and maximise new economic opportunities across our island.

This requires a plan from the Executive and from the Irish government.

Negotiators at next week’s Paris conference must connect with a wider audience and get a deal which is ambitious but which can also be the basis for meaningful delivery of the long term goal of keeping global warming under 2ºC.

It is our moral duty to find solutions to climate change now as our first choice, rather than last resort. US President Barack Obama tweeted recently, "We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it."

You can make your voice heard, and more importantly count this Sunday, 29th November by joining the People’s Climate marches which are taking place in over 70 countries as part of a global day of action.

You can join marches in Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Galway and be part of the change.

During the recent negotiations to secure the future of the political institutions the British government successfully thwarted efforts to put in place the legacy elements of last December’s Stormont House Agreement. This was deeply disappointing for victims and their families.

The British government’s refusal to honor last year’s agreement on full disclosure and to employ the pretext of ‘national security’ to deny victims access to state information, follows a familiar pattern. For four decades successive British government’s and their security, intelligence and policing agencies have worked to cover-up the systematic use of collusion, shoot-to-kill actions, and torture.

The determination and commitment of families and of a small number of dedicated victim’s support organisations and human rights lawyers have frustrated their efforts. The Bloody Sunday families; the family of Pat Finucane and the Pat Finucane Centre; Relatives for Justice; Justice for the Forgotten; the Ballymurphy Massacre families; the Springhill massacre families and the McGurk families and many more families and groups have tirelessly campaigned for justice even in the face of British obstruction. They have used a range of legal devices and publicity strategies to keep their cases on the public and political agenda.

Regrettably, it hasn’t just been the British government that has opposed the efforts of families. The Irish government has also played a depressingly negative role.

One case in point is that of Seamus Ludlow. I met the extended Ludlow family last week in Dundalk along with their legal representatives from KRWLAW – Human Rights Lawyers, who also represent the Hooded Men. Along with Kevin Winters and Gavin Booth from the law firm there were 19 of Seamus Ludlow’s family present, including his sister Kathleen.

Like many other families campaigning for truth for loved ones killed during the conflict the Ludlow campaign now embraces several generations. Brothers and sisters of Seamus Ludlow have died since he was murdered in May 1976. But last Friday those members of the family who have campaigned for 40 years were joined by nephews and nieces and grand nephews and grand nieces who have now taken up the challenge.

Seamus was 47 years old when he was murdered by a UVF/Red Hand Commando gang. Among the four men involved in the murder were two serving officers in the Ulster Defence Regiment. Seamus was shot and thrown into a ditch near his Thistle Cross, Dundalk home.

In the months after his death the family was the target of a sustained smear campaign by the Gardaí who claimed that Seamus was killed by the IRA allegedly because he was an informer. They also subsequently claimed that a member of the family was involved. None of this was true.

The investigation into the murder was suspended quickly by the Gardaí. Four months after Seamus was shot dead an inquest was held. The Gardaí failed to inform the family in time. As a result no family members were present.

Subsequently it also emerged that the Gardaí knew that unionist paramilitaries were responsible from shortly after the murder. In a letter to the Gardaí in January 1979 the RUC identified the four suspects it believed were responsible for the killing. Two confessed during interrogation by the RUC although later the DPP in the north declined to take them to court.

The Gardaí never interviewed the four men and never told the family. The family first heard of the four in an investigative report by the Sunday Tribune in 1998 uncovered the names of those allegedly involved in the murder.

As a result of the steadfastness and courage of the Ludlow family the murder was investigated by the Barron Commission, which also investigated the Dublin-Monaghan Bombings, as well as bomb attacks in Castleblaney, Dundalk, the Miami Showband murders and the deaths of 18 other citizens.

It reported that files and much of the forensic evidence, including fingerprint evidence and ballistics was missing from Garda files.

The Final Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry from the Irish Parliamentary Joint Committee on Justice was published in March 2006. It expressed its “disappointment at the lack of cop-operation from the British authorities … the role collusion played in the murder of Seamus Ludlow.” It was also hugely critical of the behaviour of the Gardaí toward the family. It accused the Gardaí of having treated the family in “an appalling manner.”

Crucially the report also recommended the establishment of two Commissions of Investigation by the Irish government. “One commission was to examine the conduct of the Garda investigation and the co-operation with the police in the North and the other was to examine the issues relating to the absence of relevant documentation. To date we note that these recommendations have not been furthered since.”

Last year I wrote to the Minister for Justice asking if he would implement the outstanding recommendations of the Final report. He said: “There are, however, no plans at present to establish a Commission of Investigation into the case.”

Along with their legal team the Ludlow family has now mapped out a legal route to highlight the case and secure additional information from the Irish and British governments. Specifically in the north the family will issue civil proceedings against the PSNI (who inherited the responsibilities of the RUC), the British Ministry of Defence and the Secretary of State in an action for damages including collusion and negligence. This they believe will help assist the discovery of evidence. The family also intend writing to the office of the Public Prosecution Service asking why it's predecessor the DPP refused to prosecute the four men identified as the unionist paramilitary gang responsible.

The family also intend writing to the Irish govt over its refusal to act on the Barron recommendations.

Almost 40 years after his murder and nearly ten years after the ‘Final Report on the Report of the Barron Commission’ it is the Irish government – not the British government – that continues to obstruct the Ludlow family’s efforts to get to the truth. It is the Irish government which is refusing to establish the Commissions of Investigation.

Last Friday Sinn Féin unveiled a policy document to address the housing crisis that has been created by successive Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour governments. The policy will deliver 100,000 new social and affordable homes, and security and certainty for tenants, and also support homeowners and buyers.

Increasing homelessness, soaring rents, never-ending housing waiting lists, and poor quality houses and apartments, are the legacy of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, and the Labour party.

Housing across the 26 counties is in crisis as successive governments have handed responsibility for housing to landlords, developers and bankers. Profit has been put before the needs of citizens and we are all paying the price.

Days before the launch of the Sinn Féin plan Fine Gael and Labour voted down a Sinn Féin Bill in the Dáil - "Rent Certainty and Prevention of Homelessness Bill".

The proposals contained in the Bill were all called for by those in the front line dealing with the housing and homeless crisis, including the Simon Community, Focus Ireland and Peter McVerry. The Bill would have provided for definitive action on the current rental and homelessness crisis by linking rents to the rate of inflation and by limiting rent increases over a period of time.

It would also have updated the definition of homelessness and put an onus on local authorities to act in support of people who are facing homelessness.

The government’s decision to vote down the Bill was in the week that saw the one year anniversary of the tragic death of Jonathan Corrie.

Jonathan died from the cold last December, huddled in a doorway, just a few yards from the Dáil. That any citizen would die from the cold is an indictment of government policy. Sadly despite his death and the promises of action in its wake by the government, the housing and homeless crisis has become worse.

Since then two more homeless men have died on Dublin’s streets. The government’s response has been grossly inadequate.

Following Jonathan Corrie’s death the government sought to tackle the most visible evidence of its failure – the increasing numbers of rough sleepers. Over the Christmas period last year extra emergency beds were provided which saw an immediate decrease in the numbers sleeping rough on our streets. However the causes of the rise in homelessness which led to the rough sleeper epidemic have not been tackled.

This year the government claim is that there is a bed for everyone. But the provision of emergency accommodation is no solution. It is a sticking plaster approach to a much more deep rooted problem.

The government’s strategy has been to put the problem out of sight without any real meaningful solutions. According to Focus Ireland some 100 people are sleeping rough on the streets of Dublin each night and this trend is increasing in other cities, including Cork, Limerick and Galway.

The causes of homelessness in this state all spring from the fact that we have far too few local authority homes in which to house people and we have built only a few hundred each year since the economic crisis began.

This has led to massive pressure on the private rental market which in turn has driven up rents and pushed down conditions for these renters. Last December approximately 40 families each month were losing their homes.

Focus Ireland states that the figure has now doubled to between 70 and 80 families. A year ago more than 300 families (726 children) were homeless in Dublin. In May this figure had risen to 900 children and 1,488 adults. Two weeks ago the Dublin Region Homeless Executive reported that 1,425 children in 677 families are in emergency accommodation in Dublin.

This is a 109 per cent increase in the number of homeless children since October 2014.

Crucially on this government’s watch the number of children in homeless accommodation has gone up almost every month since October 2014. Government statistics show that in September there were 4,999 people in emergency accommodation across the State. This was made up of 1,571 children, 980 parents and 2,448 adults without children.

There are now almost 90,000 households on local authority waiting lists – some put the real figure at 130,000 - and some have been there for a decade.

Three weeks ago a major European report – the European Index of Exclusion 2015 - found that the Irish state has the second highest rate of rent and mortgage arrears within the EU. One in five citizens are affected by this. Of the 28 EU states, 16 see poor tenants pay out more for accommodation than those taking home above the average income.

This state is the second worst with almost half of poor households paying out more. At the end of June almost 100,000 mortgage accounts were in arrears. Just over seventy thousand households were in arrears for more than 90 days.

These statistics are an indictment of Fine Gael and Labour, and of Fianna Fáil and Green Party government before them. These bad policies contribute to this state having a higher percentage of children at risk of poverty – 34% - compared to the EU average of 28%.

Most recently the government’s failure to speedily introduce measures to tackle spiralling rents contributed to some landlords exploiting the government’s prevarication to push rents up. The data from Daft.ie shows that since September rents have risen across the state by 3.2%. With Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick seeing increases of between 8.9 and 13.5% on last year.

My own constituency of Louth is among the regions with the highest rates of inflation in rents outside of Dublin. According to Daft.ie Louth saw an increase of 13.3% in rents since last year. This compares with 12.2% in Galway and 11.4% in Limerick. Rents also rose by an average of 3.2% in Leinster – outside of Dublin – between June and September – with the biggest increases in Louth and Meath.

The government was warned that its refusal to take firm action to introduce rent certainty measures would encourage landlords to increase rents before any legislation was introduced. The Daft.ie report confirms this.

The government’s approach has been inadequate to meet the needs of families desperate for a home. In its five years in office it has built fewer homes than was built in any single year for the previous decade.

The solution to the housing crisis is to build social housing and it is clearly government policy not to do this.

What is needed is a holistic approach which tackles social housing need, private market provision, and rent inequality.

Critically, as we approach the centenary of the Proclamation with its emphasis on social justice and equality we need a commitment to providing every citizen with adequate and appropriate housing.

Sinn Féin believes that every person, whatever their background or ethnicity, has the right to housing of a standard that provides privacy, space, security, comfort and basic facilities needed for the 21^st century.

To achieve this Sinn Féin is committing to building 100,000 new social and affordable homes by Local Authorities and approved Housing Bodies over the next 15 years.

Between 2016 – 2021 Sinn Féin will build and deliver almost 36,500 social and affordable homes and will spend an additional €2.2 billion over and above the government’s current capital commitments.

This comprehensive housing document, which is available on the Sinn Féin website, is a fully costed housing document which can effectively tackle the housing and homeless crisis.

It will be a major plank of our election campaign in the new year when the Taoiseach finally calls the general election.

I sat through the RTE Prime Time programme last Monday night amazed at how far greed will drive individuals to engage in corrupt practices. The southern state has a long history of political corruption. Some Councillors, TDs, government Ministers and Taoisigh have exploited their political positions for self-gain.

Planning processes have been particularly favoured by them. Politicians received kick-backs for the ‘right’ decisions in planning processes that advantaged some developers. Land that was bought cheap suddenly skyrocketed in value when it was zoned for housing and business use. The ‘brown envelope’ culture was endemic in political life in the south for decades. It has been a key feature of a long-running and toxic political culture that also gave us the abuses of power that we have seen in the banks, in the health service, in charities and in church and State-run institutions.

It is part and parcel of a culture of golden circles and insiders which has so tarnished the political system in the 26 counties and so badly served our citizens. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which between them have wielded power in this State for the past 90 years, created, maintained and are completely mired in this corrupt political culture.

In my view, it is a consequence of the counter-revolutionary period which followed the 1916 Rising and the Tan War. This is the same political culture which ultimately resulted in the total collapse of the economy seven years ago.

But Monday nights RTE investigative programme lifted the lid again on corrupt planning practices. The investigative team undertook the considerable task of analysing the declarations of interest of every elected representative in the Irish state - 1,186 in total, including 949 Councillors, 60 Senators, 166 TDs and 11 MEPs.

It found that dozens of politicians had failed to include important details and financial interests in their declarations. Consequently the RTEs investigative unit specifically targeted three Councillors with what is a classic TV sting. The unit set up a fictitious company. It claimed to be developing a wind farm and a reporter contacted the three seeking assistance through the planning process.

The end result was a television documentary using hidden cameras and bugged phones that exposed the inappropriate behaviour of the three men. Unethical behaviour that most citizens thought had been consigned to history was aggain evident on our tv screens. At times the three Councillors acted out their roles with nods and winks, and gestures and laughter that had the blood boiling.

On Monday night after the programme was broadcast Fianna Fáil Sligo Councillor Joe Queenan announced his resignation from the party. Former Fine Gael Councillor Hugh McElvaney resigned several weeks ago shortly after he was challenged by RTE. Independent Donegal Councillor John O’Donnell told the RTE reporter that any money should be routed through a third party. "Politically there would be a backlash," he said, "you know the way people are … so many begrudgers out there."

The public response was predictable. Citizens were outraged and incensed. It was a reminder of other bad days. Eighteen years ago the Mahon Tribunal was established to examine allegations of corruption in planning processes and land rezoning issues in Dublin County Council area in the 1990’s.

After 18 years of investigation and millions of euro Mahon reported in 2012. The Tribunal made ten recommendations relating to planning. However, three years after its final report and five years after Fine Gael and Labour assumed office the Irish government has still not implemented the Tribunal’s recommendations.

Instead, the former Fine Gael Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan, infamously frustrated proper scrutiny of the planning process. In one of his first acts as Minister, Hogan, since promoted by the Taoiseach to the prestigious position of European Commissioner, shut down an inquiry initiated by his ministerial predecessor John Gormley.

This was an inquiry into alleged planning irregularities in several local authority areas, namely Dublin city, Cork city and counties Cork, Carlow, Meath, Galway and Donegal. Phil Hogan has never given a satisfactory explanation for doing this. There remain serious and unanswered questions around this decision. He actually said at one point that the allegations were spurious. How does he know they were spurious when they have not been investigated?

This action highlights the arrogance of the Government and its indifference to pursuing any genuine reform of the planning system. There is a deep suspicion that Phil Hogan was motivated by a desire not to rock the boat in local government because, at the time, Fine Gael and the Labour Party controlled many councils across the State, including some in which these irregularities allegedly occurred.

Subsequently, an internal review by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, which was presented as an alternative to the Gormley review, claimed there was no evidence of wrongdoing in planning.

However, Gerard Convie, a senior planner in Donegal County Council, provided evidence of planning irregularities and he went to the High Court. The court quashed the review's section on Donegal. The Department was forced to apologise to Gerard Convie. The internal review was discredited and had to be set aside.

Did the Government go back to the Mahon tribunal recommendations? No. Instead, it set up another review into six local authorities, this time to be carried out by a group of consultants. We have yet to see what that will come up with.

Central to the Mahon tribunal recommendations was the establishment of an independent planning regulator. When the report was published in March 2012, the then Minister for State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, promised the Government would make such an appointment. But what we have ended up with is a bland, ineffective Office of Planning Regulator that is not what Mahon proposed and is entirely subservient to the Minister.

If the Irish Government genuinely seeks to break with the corrupt political legacy of the past it must move to reform the planning process. The Government's amendment shows it has no intention of doing this.

We are on the eve of a momentous year. This time a hundred years ago republican men and women were planning the overthrow of the British Empire in Ireland.

REVOLUTION 1916: Molly O Reilly and the Rising

For those of you who have never heard her name Molly O’Reilly was a young teenage girl who marched with the Citizen Army to the GPO on Easter Monday April 24^th 1916. Molly was born around 1900 in Gardner Street in Dublin. At the age of 11 she joined Clann na nGaedheal the republican girl scouts movement. Two years later she was so appalled by the living conditions in the Dublin tenements that she volunteered to support the workers and their families during the Lock-out. At the age of 13 Molly helped organise a soup kitchen in Liberty Hall.

And it was there one week before the Easter Rising she raised the Irish flag (the gold harp on green) for James Connolly.

Molly was hugely influenced by Connolly and was an active member of the Citizen Army. In July 1914, after hundreds of rifles were landed by the Asgard at Howth, she brought dozens of the rifles to her home in Gardner Street where they stayed until they could be distributed throughout Dublin.

During Easter week and in the midst of heavy rifle and machine gun fire and the artillery shelling of Dublin City centre she fearlessly carried dispatches for the leaders out of and into the GPO.

Later during the Tan War she was a member of the Cumann na mBan and as a worker in the United Services Club in St. Stephens Green – a club for British soldiers – she gathered intelligence for Michael Collins.

Molly opposed the Treaty. During the Civil War she was held in prison by the Treaty side and went on hunger strike. As a result she and 50 other women were released in November 1923. Molly remained a stalwart of the republican struggle until her death in October 1950.

Molly O’Reilly was an exceptional woman; a courageous woman; a strong woman.

I give you this short account of her exceptional life experience because the Sinn Féin exhibition to celebrate the Easter Rising – REVOLUTION 1916 – which will open on Saturday February 27^th 2016 - is largely centred around Molly’s story. The visitor will experience the Rising through Molly’s eyes.

The exhibition promises to be one of the highlights of the centenary celebrations. It will be held in the historic Ambassador Theatre on O Connell Street. It is part of the Rotunda complex which saw the founding of Sinn Féin in 1905 and the Irish Volunteers in 1913. Over seven thousand joined the Volunteers at that inaugural meeting and on the same night a special section set aside for women was also full.

The organisers of the exhibition are going to extraordinary lengths to make REVOLUTION 1916 an event not to be missed or forgotten.

It will host the Irish Volunteers Commemorative Organisation (I.V.C.O.) collection of artefacts covering 1916 and afterwards. It will also include an original 1916 Proclamation - one of only 50 known to exist. This week another of the original Proclamations sold in London for £300,000.

The exhibition will also have on display threeSingle Shot Mausers which were part of the consignment of 900 brought in as part of the Howth gunrunning episode. These were used during the Rising. One of the single shot Mausers is a "Black" one - a one off rifle - that was said to have been given to the veteran Fenian and 1916 signatory Tom Clarke. It was only recently identified and the brass trigger guard has 20 notches carved on it. It also has a British sappers serrated bayonet attached. Only 12 of these Mausers are known to still exist.

Other artefacts include Luger and C96 Mauser machine pistols, original uniforms of Irish Volunteers, Cumann na mBan and na Fianna Éireann.

There will be over 500 artefacts on display, many of which have never been seen before. Also included are other items from after 1916 including Michael Collin's revolver, the first I.R.A. Thompson machine guns brought to Ireland, and the Tricolour that flew over the G.P.O. in 1966 on the 50^thanniversary of the Rising.

A significant part of the exhibition will involve lifting part of the floor of the Ambassador so that visitors can look down into the network of tunnels underneath. These were used by Michael Collins’s, ‘The Squad’ to carry out attacks on the British military. It is also believed by some that the leaders who abandoned the GPO as it burned on the evening of 28 April 1916 were trying to make their way to these tunnels.

Also on display are a wide range of artistic pieces from framed portraits to stylised garrisons, large charcoal prints to life size sculptures. Artist Robert Ballagh has created a set of iconic images of the 1981 Hunger Strikers which will be on exhibition for the first time to mark the 35th anniversary in 2016. And master mural artist Danny Devenny is completing two 1916 murals in the lobby of the Ambassador.

Each day at midday a uniformed P.H.Pearse will read aloud the Proclamation outside the Ambassador.

The exhibition is scheduled to run for at least 33 weeks.

International Women’s Day on March 6^th will see the ‘Women of the Revolution’ honoured by an event at the GPO.

Other events will include a parade of the Irish Citizen Army that will take place from Liberty Hall to St. Stephen’s Green on March 26^th.

Dawn Vigils will be held outside Kilmainham Gaol on the dates the leaders were executed and in Cork on 9th May and Pentonville on August 3rd 2016.

And on Sunday April 24th 2016 the Citizens’ Initiative will be holding a national march and rally to ‘Reclaim the Vision of 2016’.

So, a lot of hard work and planning is going into REVOLUTION 1916. Whatever else you are thinking of doing next year as your contribution to the centenary celebrations take the time to come to Dublin for a once in a life time opportunity to see a unique exhibition of artefacts of that period. See you there.

Next Thursday – January 7^th 2016 – Sinn Féin will begin our commemorative year of events to mark the centenary of the 1916 Rising. The first of these will take place in the Mansion House where the first democratically elected Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann, met and pledged it’s allegiance to the Republic proclaimed in Easter 1916.

The Mansion House event will be a celebration of the lives and dedication and struggle of the men and women of 1916 and of subsequent generations. It will encompass music and theatre and speeches and will set the context for that historic period and its implications for today.

We are on the eve of a momentous year. This time a hundred years ago, republican men and women in all parts of this island and beyond were planning the overthrow of the British Empire in Ireland. It was a huge undertaking. The British Empire was at the height of its political and economic power. It was the biggest empire the world had ever seen. It’s colonies stretched across every inhabited continent and held hundreds of millions of people in subjection. They were the object of exploitation and repression.

Ireland was Britain’s first colony. But despite hundreds of years of occupation, of brutality and famine there remained a deeply held desire for freedom. This yearning was given shape by the republican philosophy of the late 18^th century and the rebellion of 1798. At its core was and is a belief that all people are sovereign and equal. That people are citizens, not subjects. And that people have certain rights for living, including the right to food, to water, to a home and work and to health and education, and a decent environment.

Society must reflect the entirety of its people, not part of them. Why should gender or race or class or skin colour or creed give one group of human beings the ability to deny others of their full rights as citizens.

The men and women who participated in the 1916 Rising envisaged a Republic, where people had fundamental rights, not arbitrary privileges; where there was equality, not elitism; where there was unity, not partition and division. These beliefs were given expression in the Proclamation. That historic document is a clear statement of intent for an all-Ireland republic built on foundations of civil and religious liberty, social justice and equality for all citizens. It remains the guiding template for modern republicanism.

In April 1916 the Rising and the Proclamation of the Republic at the GPO rocked British imperialism to its core. It inspired liberation movements across the globe and over subsequent decades it successfully rolled back colonialism leading to the freedom of many nations and hundreds of millions of people.

Regrettably there was a counter revolution which succeeded in partitioning the island and witnessed the creation of two conservative states. The freedom won by those who gave their lives in 1916 and in other periods has been squandered by those who attained political power on their backs. Consequently, we still don’t have that Republic; we still lack equality, fundamental rights, unity and sovereignty.

But as Padraic Pearse said to those who sentenced him to death at his court martial on the eve of his execution; “You cannot conquer Ireland. You cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed.”

The Centenary year is a unique opportunity for a step change in the struggle to achieve Irish freedom and positively transform Irish politics and society.

2016 is also an election year North and South and Sinn Féin will stand candidates on a progressive republican and anti-austerity platform across this island.

In the South, citizens will have an important opportunity to get rid of this bad Fine Gael/Labour Government whose tenure has been marked by destructive austerity policies which have deepened social inequality.

Sinn Féin is committed to delivering a fair recovery by working towards a progressive, republican government.

In the North we will continue to stand up for working families, vulnerable citizens and the development of the economy and public services.

The recent Fresh Start Agreement allows the political process and institutions to proceed on a new and stable basis.

Sinn Féin is committed to resolving the issues of the past, supporting victims of the conflict and promoting reconciliation and healing.

We will continue to campaign for the return of more political powers and economic levers from London to the island of Ireland.

But the greatest safeguard against Tory misrule in the north and the austerity politics of the conservative parties in the south is the peaceful ending of partition and the building of an agreed, united Ireland a real republic.

In this important year, working together, the people of Ireland can make important steps towards a genuine republic and a citizen-centred, rights based society.

Isn’t it funny that women get their hair done. Men get their hair cut. I hate getting my hair cut. But I wouldn’t mind getting my hair done. The problem is that no matter what you tell them most barbers seem afflicted with a desire to cut as much hair as possible.

When you wear glasses as I do you have to remove them for the shearing session. So things are a bit of a blur until the process is concluded and then what can you say? Nothing, except, that’s grand.

I’ve known many barbers. Some of them talk incessantly. About everything. Especially politics. I hate that.

RG hates that also. He confided in me one time that as well as being short sight he’s becoming slightly deaf.

So not only cannot he not see what’s happening to his head he can’t hear what he’s being interrogated about.

Although I don’t think he’ll have to worry about the barbers for too long!

The worst barbers I ever met were in Long Kesh.

I think some of them did it as a joke. Or as a protest against internment.

That’s why my hair and beard were shoulder length.

And then there are other barbers who flit in and out of your life. Cutting your hair almost on a whim. These are usually nieces or other female relations who dress hair for a living or as a hobby. Usually they don’t charge you.

Anyway I am drawn to this subject because of a recent experience and because I don’t want to write about politics at the beginning of the year.

I had managed to avoid getting my hair cut for a long time – well longer than usual – when I was pulled in by the Sinn Féin style police.

Your hair and beard are too long they told me. Get them cut I was instructed.

Getting a hair cut in Dublin can be a bit of a challenge.

“I wouldn’t mind going to a Turkish barber,” I said to RG as we sat gridlocked along the Quays in early morning traffic.

“There’s one at the corner of Holles Street,” he said.

So we meandered our way in that direction.

I told RG about the Tyrone woman’s husband going to a Turkish barbers because for every three haircuts you got the fourth one was free.

We both agreed that that seemed like a good deal.

But when we reach Holles Street the Turkish barber’s was closed.

Getting parked was another problem.

It wasn’t long passed nine o clock.

“I’ll drop you off” said RG. “It should be opening soon.”

“Where will you go?” I asked?

“I’ll drive round” he replied. “See you back here in half an hour”.

So that’s what we did.

I felt a bit conspicuous standing outside the shuttered shop with its posters proclaiming hot towels, shaves and other mysterious procedures.

So, I went for a walk.

A homeless man hunkered down in a doorway greeted me cheerfully.

He was wrapped in sleeping bags.

“Do you know when the Turkish barbers opens?” I asked him.

“No” he replied. “I haven’t been to the barbers in years.”

We talked for a few moments about the recession, the Taoiseach and the peace process before I wandered back.

Still no sign of the Turkish barber opening.

I loitered for another while until RG pulled into the kerb.

“Maybe it’s closed” he suggested.

“Of course it’s closed” I said. More sharply than I intended.

“No I mean closed – closed” he said.

“Check it out in that supermarket” he instructed me.

“I’ll do another circuit” he said driving off with great patience.

The supermarket wasn’t really a supermarket. It was a corner shop.

The young woman behind the counter looked as if she was Polish. She was tall and angular and she had a nice smile.

“Do you know when the Turkish barbers opens?” I asked her.

“It’s closed” she said.

I thought I noticed her eyes misting over slightly.

“Abdullah has left. He said he couldn’t get enough customers” she said.

I imagined Abdullah being drawn from his empty barber shop to the young Polish woman with the nice smile. I imagined him confiding in her about difficult things were. They were both exiles. I presumed Abdullah was young. She obviously missed him now.

“Where did he go?” I asked.

“Why do you ask?” she replied, as her smile faded.

“Oh just wondering I stammered. Thank you.”

“Have a nice day” she concluded, smiling once again.

Afterwards as we made our way to Leinster House I told RG about the beautiful Polish shop assistant and her Turkish lover.

“A real delight” he said. His patience finally evaporating.

Later that day I surrendered to a barber’s chair. I noticed how white my shorn locks were against the darkness of the cape that I was draped in. Not just white – Persil white. And that was only the beard.

“Could you cut that bit here?” I asked.

“It always grows in a big clump.”

“Someday you’ll be glad to have a big clump to complain about”, my tormentor gruffly responded.

There was no answer to that.

Last Friday, and with only 48 hours notice, Louth County Council began a process to evict 23 Traveller families from a halting site at Woodland Park in Dundalk.

Those evicted included at least 22 children, some of them babies only days old, and two pregnant women. This was a shameful action.

A large force of An Garda Síochána were present, including members of the Armed Response Unit. I have no complaints about the Garda although I do believe the numbers involved were excessive and that the response was inappropriate.

The distress and trauma for the families as a result of this decision by the Executive of Louth County Council and especially for the children was unreasonable and unnecessary. It was also the coldest weekend of the winter.

The decision to evict was taken without consultation with councillors.

I raised this issue with Louth Chief Executive in November and visited the Woodland Park site in December. During Christmas week I made representations about conditions on the site to the Council and other agencies. There was no mains electricity, no mains water, no sewerage or other necessary services.

The basis on which Louth County Council said that it was carrying out these evictions was a fire safety inspection.

However Louth County Council, like all other councils, was given the Programme to Review Fire Safety in Traveller Accommodation report that was prepared early last December.

This report which was produced by the Department of the Environment and the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management, was initiated after the tragic fire at a halting site on the Glenamuck Road in Carrickmines in which ten people, five of them children, from the same extended family were killed. According to a note at the beginning of the report the document was distributed to all local authority CEOs on December 3^rd 2015.

The project’s objective was to ensure that practical and appropriate fire safety measures were introduced.

The report acknowledged that there was, and I quote, “a fear that fire safety may be used as a basis for seeking changes in accommodation arrangements.”

It makes it clear that “nothing in this fire safety review process is intended to be used to address the broader Traveller accommodation issues in a negative way.”

In other words it was not a green light to evict Travellers from halting sites which do not meet fire safety standards. It is about providing health and safety measures.

The last five families on the Woodland Park site are being evicted today and tomorrow.

Some have had to sell their mobile homes for small amounts of money because of the Council’s eviction process.This has added to the trauma of some of the families.

Yesterday the families were also told that the Council would provide an auctioneer to assist their alternative accommodation in residential housing. Today when they met him they were told there was no availability.

Some of the women, including at least one pregnant woman have had to sleep in cars for the past three nights. This is outrageous.

There is already a homeless crisis in Louth. Five thousand people are on the housing waiting list. The Chief Executive’s action adds to this crisis. The Chief Executive also banned one of my constituency representatives and the Traveller’s solicitor from attending a meeting on Tuesday. This was unhelpful.

The common sense and most cost efficient resolution to this issue is to urgently bring the halting site up to health and safety standards.

This would have allowed Traveller families to remain in their home and would be in keeping with their culture and ethnicity.

I understand from the Woodland Park Travellers representatives today that Louth County Council is saying that it will now have to review its Traveller Accommodation Programme and that this will take three months.

Only at the end of that process will the Council consider applying for funding to upgrade Woodland Park.

I fail to understand why the Council are imposing this delay. Their Traveller Accommodation Programme is supposed to run from 2014 to 2018. They are not half way through it yet.

During Topical issues in the Dáil today I raised this issue with Minister Paudie Coffey. In his response the Minister spoke of short term solutions having been discussed and agreed with the Travellers. This is not what I have been told by the representatives of the Traveller families. The Minister also says that he is satisfied that the Council is committed to working with the families and their representatives. I remain to be convinced of this.

Today I understand that some of those evicted from the site have had their social welfare payments stopped because they are no longer resident at the addresses they had given to the Social Welfare department. So families have suffered the indignity and trauma of eviction by the council and the state has now stopped their welfare payments.

The treatment of the Woodland Park families in this centenary year of the Proclamation has been deplorable.

Last year the Minister for Equality Aodhán Ó Riordáin promised that traveller ethnicity would be a reality. He gave a firm commitment that it would happen within months.

Minister Ó Riordáin rightly acknowledged that this didn’t need legislation, constitutional change or a referendum.

His commitment came after the Oireachtas Committee on Justice also recommended this step which is supported by the United Nations and the Irish Human Rights Commission.

There are only weeks remaining of this Dáil. Will the government commit to honouring Minister Ó Riordáin pledge or will this be another broken promise?

Sinn Féin will be fighting two major elections on the island this year. An assembly election in the north, and a general election in the south.

Elections are funny things. Not funny ha ha. But funny peculiar and in some ways predictable. Of course, the outcome isn’t always predictable – that’s in the gift of the electorate - but the language and actions of some of the participants can be.

Enda Kenny is still holding off on setting a date for the general election. The reasons are many. It is thought by some he is waiting until after the party conferences are concluded. The Fine Gael party conference is this weekend. The Labour Party conference is the week after.

The last few months have been full of government announcements proclaiming to all and sundry what a great job the coalition parties are doing. And there have been the usual glut of election promises. Last week the Taoiseach and some of his ministers did a presser at which they claimed to have delivered on 93 per cent of their election promises from the last time. The reality of course has been much different.

The government’s electoral spin juxtaposes the stability they claim is offered by Fine Gael and Labour to the chaos of a government made up of anyone else. One Labour Minister, Brendan Howlin went so far as to arrogantly suggest that all of the other parties could save ourselves the effort of even bothering to produce a manifesto.

But for many citizens the reality is very different from that experienced by government Ministers and their spin doctors.

Where is the stability in the 29 emergency departments across the southern state where every day hundreds of patients, many of them elderly, lie on hospital trolleys? Or the half a million citizens who have been forced to emigrate in search of work? Or the hundreds of families impacted by the recent floods and the government’s cutbacks to flood defenses?

Where is the stability for homeless families and the tens of thousands on growing housing waiting lists? There are now 5100 citizens in homeless accommodation, including 1638 children. Since last January homelessness has risen by 93%.

Predictably Fine Gael and Labour are already engaging in the worst kind of auction politics and negative campaigning. Last week Labour promised to reduce childcare costs to two euro an hour if they are returned to government. No costings just a promise.

In 2011 Labour produced its now infamous Tesco ad. It outlined a series of measures the Labour Party claimed Fine Gael planned to bring in if they won the election. The message was simple. If you want to stop child benefit from being cut – vote Labour. If you want to stop water charges – vote Labour.

Labour then went into coalition with Fine Gael and introduced every measure they had promised to oppose.

As Mary Lou reminded the Labour leader last week in the Dáil: “In your 2011 election manifesto your party promised ‘to develop a comprehensive national pre-school service’. Tánaiste you broke that promise. Just like you broke your promise to protect child benefit, just like you broke your promise not to cut one-parent family payment until you introduced a Scandinavian style childcare system.’”

Two weeks ago it was revealed that as part of its negative campaigning Labour planned to produce an add showing the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and mise as a gay couple getting married outside the Dáil. The slogan to accompany the ad was: “This is one marriage we should vote NO to this year.”

The ad was slated on social media, and Labour, which had supported the marriage equality vote last year, squirmed as it was heavily criticised.

Fine Gael and Labour believe that election promises only last as long as the campaign.

And Fianna Fáil is no better. Elements of that party were responsible for systemic corruption and economic chaos. In government Fianna Fáil was responsible for the worst banking collapse in Irish history, which almost bankrupted the 26 counties, set new record levels of unemployment and emigration, and drove hundreds of thousands of households in negative equity.

As it tries to reinvent its image Fianna Fáil has directed part of its negative campaigning at Sinn Féin. Like Thatcher in her day Micheál Martin has resorted to the language of criminalization accusing the party of being like a ‘mafia’ and of failing to expose criminals.

The reality is that Martin’s increasingly strident rants against Sinn Féin, and his vindictive revisionism of recent history does not serve the cause of Irish republicanism or indeed the stated objectives of Fianna Fáil. His attacks on those of us who supported the IRA during the conflict is an attack also on more principled elements within Fianna Fáil who sheltered IRA Volunteers, republican escapees and others at that time.

When Micheál Martin attacks Sinn Féin he is attacking that generation, which is not unique to Fianna Fáil and includes some Fine Gael supporters, who kept faith with the people of the north.

From the 1950s border campaign, to the civil rights in the 1960s, to providing safe houses for IRA volunteers and supporting the hunger strikers, many good and decent Fianna Fáil people supported the demand for freedom and were also among the strongest supporters of the peace process. There is undoubtedly concern among many Fianna Fáil people at Micheál Martin’s anti-Sinn Féin crusade. In this centenary year he sounds a lot like Thatcher or former Fine Gael leader John Bruton who believes the Rising was wrong.

So the phoney election war is almost over. Sinn Féin has 50 candidates standing in 40 constituencies and all of the election launches I have spoken at – in Bray, Dublin, Kells, Cork and Wexford have been excellent. The activists are highly motivated and ready to seize the opportunities of 2016.

I feel an adventure coming on

The internet and social media have revolutionised how we communicate. Not just politically but personally too. I have friends who spend hours on their Facebook accounts keeping in touch with family and friends – some of whom they may not have seen in years. Or who may just be in another room. Skype and Facetime too are now a common part of our language.

Five years ago they weren’t as popular as they are now. Some probably didn’t exist. For my part, apart from emails and my blog my engagement with social media was limited.

All of that began to change when I agreed to stand for Louth and East Meath. That was just before Christmas in December 2010. It was a big step made easier by the warm welcome I received.

When shortly afterwards I was elected as a TD, Shaun Tracey from our Leinster House press office opened a twitter account in my name. It sat there for two years unused. In February 2013 Shaun and RG decided it was time I really joined the social media world. I vaguely remember a long conversation about how Twitter works and what it would entail. I had no objections to the proposal but I had one condition. That my twitter account should be MY twitter account. I was only half serious but they agreed.

The Twitter account was activated, new passwords inserted and it was over to me to decide when and where and how it would commence.

A few days later I was in Louth doing some constituency work. I had to travel back to Dublin for an Ard Chomhairle meeting the next day. RG was heading back to Belfast. He dropped me out to where we stayed and drove off. The problem was he had the keys to our lodging. That was the origin of the first tweet. “RG took the car, took my keys also. I feel an adventure coming on."

The response to my tweets was very interesting. Journalists rang the press office and asked if it was really me. It was they were told by Shaun. I soon discovered when the Sunday Indo spends 17 pages having a good go at me and Sinn Fein a tweet on a totally unrelated and humorous issue was a good way of showing that I didn’t really care about the rubbish they print.

Irony is a great ally in any argument. And not taking yourself too seriously. So is contrariness. Tweeting allows me to give vent to that. It doesn’t all need to be about the politics. It can be about people or the little people in my life or the dogs I have known or the trauma of visits to the barbers or ducks.

Some journos, who don’t know me or have never met me, thought it was some clever ploy by the Sinn Féin thought police to soften my image! I once watched part of a serious BBC political programme where a couple of academics – who I have never met - discussed the hidden meaning of my musings and the cleverness of Sinn Féin in using twitter. RTE and others were not to be left out.

And these folks said my tweets are bizarre! Their preoccupation with my tweets was what was really bizarre.

If truth be told I like the independence of tweeting. I like its immediacy. I can tweet a photo or a comment and within seconds there are responses and retweets. I like the fact that no one is looking over my shoulder. No editor is scrutinising the words.

I also like the fact that in a very real way the social media allows everyone to reach an audience beyond the bias of elements of the media. There is no interpreter; no person in the middle putting his or her spin on what I or other Sinn Féin activists are saying or writing.

Today I checked my twitter. I was curious about its reach. Currently I have ninety eight thousand followers and in the last 24 hours there have been 193,713 impressions connected to my account. That’s a bigger circulation than the Indo.

Perhaps that’s one reason why some opponents in the media and in politics get so obsessed with Twitter. We have moved beyond them.

I thought of including in this blog some examples of the things that I tweet about. The birds and the bees. RG. Hurling and football. Life and music and books and poetry and food. Tom and Ted. They strutted their stuff years before the Marriage Equality Referendum. All the fun and humour that is a natural part of the human condition.

But I don’t have the space. So I have put together My Little Book Of Tweets. It has been published by Mercier Press.

My first Tweet took life almost exactly three years ago. It’s been an experience. It’s been an adventure. And a bit of craic.

I will be launching ‘My Little Book Of Tweets’ in Dublin in Easons, Stephens Green at 5pm on Friday. If you have the time join me there. Or in the Kennedy Centre in Belfast on Saturday at 1pm.

Chífidh mé thú ansin.

The starting pistol has been fired; the referee has blown his whistle; the starting gates have been thrown open; and we are off the blocks. And at the end of all those sporting metaphors I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that we are now in the midst of the general election.

There has been a sort of phoney election campaign going on for months. All of the parties have been writing their manifestos and polishing off their policy documents. In the last three weeks anyone who follows me on twitter will know that I have been travelling across the south for the campaign launches of Sinn Féin candidates.

From Meath to Wicklow and Wexford, to Dublin, Cork and Galway. In Louth Imelda Munster and I had a great campaign launch. We are hoping to take two of the five seats. It’s a big ask but doable.

The mood among activists is expectant and positive. There is a widely held view that the party will do better this time than we did in 2011 when we won fourteen seats in the Dáil and three subsequently in the Seanad.

But we can take nothing for granted. This is senior hurling. Not a vote has been cast. So the next three weeks will be a frenetic round of public meetings, canvassing and media interviews. The leadership debates will undoubtedly attract a lot of interest. It’s not clear yet who will participate in what. The RTE debates could involve up to seven party leaders. That’s a lot. I don’t envy those who will have the task of ensuring impartiality and balance and equal time for so many.

It will come as no surprise that the establishment parties of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour seek a continuation of ‘business as usual’. That means continued political cronyism and policies that entrench inequality and unfairness.

The current Fine Gael/Labour coalition like its Fianna Fail predecessor, has presided over an unprecedented housing and homeless crisis, chaos in our hospitals, increased taxes on struggling families and workers, regressive budgets, the dismantling of vital public services and the abandonment of rural communities.

Fine Gael is clearly advocating a return to reckless 'boom and bust' policies which previously caused the collapse of the economy. The result will be a further erosion of public services and increased hardship for ordinary, working people.

The so-called ‘recovery’ they boast off and wish to sustain is a recovery only for those who have already benefited – high earners, bankers and property developers.

Fine Gael and Labour have continued to protect the Golden Circle. Just like Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have continued political appointments to state boards and refused to act on high salaries for politicians, in banking and on state bodies.

Meanwhile they have ignored the demands of hundreds of thousands of citizens who have taken to the streets again and again to demand the scrapping of domestic Water Charges.

The outgoing government has also refused to engage with the British government in the consistent strategic way that is required to ensure the full implementation of the Good Friday and other agreements.

One message that Sinn Féin canvassers will bring to the doorsteps is that a vote for Labour in this election is a vote for a Fine Gael-led Government. The Labour Party claim they are in Government to put the brakes on Fine Gael's right-wing impulse. We’ve heard it all before and all the evidence demonstrates the opposite.

Labour Ministers have been the most enthusiastic proponents of vicious cuts to the welfare of ordinary families. As a senior Cabinet member, Joan Burton oversaw the implementation of water charges, the Property Tax, cuts to child benefit, removal of medical cards, cuts to health and welfare, and a succession of stealth taxes.

Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil cannot provide a credible opposition to the present Government which is merely implementing a policy plan laid out for it five years ago by Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil Leader Mícheál Martin sat around the cabinet table for 14 years, developing the very policies now being implemented by Fine Gael and Labour. Domestic water charges, were Fianna Fáil’s brainchild.

Micheál Martin has ruled out going into coalition with Fine Gael or Sinn Féin. He has effectively ruled Fianna Fáil out of Government. As a consequence Martin has made Fianna Fáil irrelevant to the election campaign.

So, this election boils down to a choice between two different visions for Irish society - between a Fine Gael-led Government which will continue unfairness and inequality or a Sinn Féin-led Government committed to a recovery for all citizens - in other words, a genuine republic.

Had anyone at any time in the last 40 years suggested that politics in this state would see Sinn Féin as the government in waiting they would run the risk of being told they were mad. Whatever the outcome this time one thing is certain – it’s no longer a matter of if Sinn Féin will be in government in Dublin – it’s a matter of when.

In just less than three very short weeks citizens will have the opportunity to elect a progressive, republican Government which will pursue a fair recovery, end the chaos in health and housing and stand up for ordinary citizens. In this Centenary year of the 1916 Rising isn’t that worth working hard to achieve?

In the general election in the south which is now entering its second week Sinn Féin is standing 50 candidates in all 40 constituencies. It is a great honour to represent Sinn Féin in any capacity and a huge privilege to seek a mandate from your peers for our historic republican mission.

Of course not every Sinn Féin candidate will get elected. That is the nature of elections but every Sinn Féin candidate has the ability to get elected.

Opinion polls have become an integral part of every election campaign. Every newspaper and every broadcast outlet tries to second guess the electorate by commissioning polls. And then their columnists or pundits spend a huge amount of time analysing the poll they just commissioned.

If the pollsters and the pundits had their way you could just do without the election and let them decide what the people want.

We should not get carried away by opinion polls. Last week one poll had Sinn Féin down a point while another had us up a point and it was all within the three per cent margin of error! So either poll could be right – or wrong.

Every candidate and everyone else should be mindful of the particular and peculiar stresses and strains that comes with being a candidate. It’s a form of ailment called Candidatitis. It begins with the candidate coming to believe – with a certainty known only to the prophets of old – that they are going to win.

This syndrome is capable of moving even the most rational aspirant or shy wallflower into a state of extreme self belief. It strikes without warning, is no respecter of gender, and can infect the lowly municipal hopeful, the aspiring Parliamentarian, as well as the lofty presidential wannabe.

The late Screaming Lord Sutch, or his Irish equivalent, who stand just for the craic, can fall victim of candidatitis as much as the most committed and earnest political activist. I believe this is due to two factors. First of all most people standing for election see little point in telling the voters that they are not going to win. That just wouldn’t make sense. Of course not. So they say they are going to win.

Listen to Joan Burton the Labour leader. Does she admit that Labour is going to lose seats. Not a chance. Or does Micheál Martin admit that his refusal to consider going into coalition with Fine Gael or Sinn Féin (not that there’s much chance of that) means that Fianna Fáil will not be in government after this election? Not on your nelly. He spent five minutes vainly trying to convince listeners to RTE that Fianna Fáil can be in government. Even though they are clearly not running enough candidates.

That's when Candidatitis starts. As the 'we are going to win' is repeated time and time again it starts to have a hypnotic effect on the person intoning the mantra. By this time it’s too late.

Which brings me to the second factor. Most people encourage Candidatitis. Unintentionally. Not even the candidates best friend will say hold on, you haven't a chance. Except for the media. But no candidate believes the media. And most candidates are never interviewed by the media anyway.

So a victim of candidatitis will take succour from any friendly word from any punter. Even a 'good luck' takes on new meaning and 'I won't forget ye' is akin to a full blooded endorsement.

So are we to pity sufferers of this ailment? Probably not. They are mostly consenting adults, though in most elections many parties occasionally run conscripts. In the main these are staunch party people who are persuaded to run by more sinister elements who play on their loyalty and commitment. In some cases these reluctant candidates run on the understanding that they are not going to get elected. Their intervention, they are told, is to stop the vote going elsewhere or to maintain the party's representative share of the vote. In some cases this works. But in some cases, despite everything, our reluctant hero, or heroine, actually gets elected. A friend of mine was condemned to years on Belfast City council years ago when his election campaign went horribly wrong. He topped the poll.

That’s another problem in elections based on proportional representation. Topping the poll is a must for some candidates. Such ambition creates a headache for party managers. If the aim is to get a panel of party representatives elected they all have to come in fairly evenly. This requires meticulous negotiations to carve up constituencies. Implementing such arrangements make the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement look easy.

It means only placing posters and distributing leaflets in specific areas with clear instructions to the electorate on how we would like them to vote. In Louth I have already noticed that some candidates from different ends of the constituency are putting up posters in their colleagues territory. Not a good sign.

It requires an inordinate amount of discipline on the candidates' behalf not to fall into this trap. Many do. Some don’t. Some get really sneaky. Particularly as the day of reckoning comes closer. Hot flushes and an allergy to losing can lead to some sufferers poaching a colleague's votes. This is a very painful condition leading to serious outbreaks of nastiness and reprisals and recriminations if detected before polling day. It usually cannot be treated and can have long term effects.

So dear readers all of this is by way of lifting the veil on these usually unreported problems which infect our election contests. Politicians are a much maligned species. In some cases not without cause.

So the next time you look at a poster or get a leaflet through the letterbox or are confronted at your door by a wild eyed candidate – occasionally accompanied by a posse of cameras – then take a more tolerant and benign view of the sometimes strange behaviour of those citizens who contest elections .

Love us or hate us you usually get the politicians you deserve. Granted this might not always extend to governments, given the coalitions which come together in blatant contradiction of all election promises or commitments. The lust for power causes this. This condition is probably the most serious ailment affecting our political system and those who live there. It is sometimes terminal. But this comes after elections and is worthy of a separate study.

Before they get to that point, if they ever do, candidates suffer many torments. Space restrictions prevent me from documenting them all.

So, don’t ignore the visages on the multitudes of posters which defile lamp posts and telegraph poles during election times, and in some cases for years afterwards. Think of the torment that poor soul is suffering.

When you are accosted by a pamphlet waving besuited male, and they mostly are besuited males, as you shop in the supermarket or collect the children at school or are minding your own business as you walk down the main street, try to see beyond the brash exterior. It's not really our fault you see. Big boys and girls make us do it. And your votes encourage us.

This column comes to you from Dublin, via Kilkenny, via Clonmel, via Cork City, Tipperary and before that Limerick and Birr. It was the second week of the election bus. It has put in some miles and so have we. And some of those miles have been on rocky and bumpy and twisty roads. There have been a few green faces among the backroom team especially when their laptops take flight. Their stomachs sometimes follow. Especially RG’s.

I have lost track of what election ‘Day’ this is. Is it Day 15 or Day 16 or Day 17? Of course, the ‘Day’ that really matters is Friday week, February 26^th. That’s the peoples’ day. That’s when citizens in the 26 counties can shape the direction of this state, and of this island, for the next five years.

It’s been a busy time since the Taoiseach finally brought an end to the phoney electoral contest and set the election date. I suspect he’s now rueing the decision not to call the election last November when the polls where kinder to Fine Gael.

The general media view is that the government parties calculated that they needed a wee bit longer to help Labour lift itself out of the political doldrums where its opinion poll numbers had been stuck for months. It doesn’t appear to have worked out like that. I said last week that I expected Labour to be trounced in the election and nothing I have seen since then has changed my mind.

The problem for Labour is that many people knew what to expect when they voted for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. But despite the experience of recent decades there was still a section of citizens who believed Labour when it claimed it would only go into coalition with Fine Gael to protect low and middle income and working families. They feel betrayed, let down. The palpable anger at Labour for breaking its 2011 electoral promises, and its enthusiasm for, and defence of the conservative austerity agenda, is now coming home to roost.

When during the RTE leaders’ debate Labour Leader Joan Burton called on progressive voters to vote for Fine Gael there was an audible groan. How can progressive citizens vote for a pro-austerity and conservative party? The party that Connolly founded has sunk to a new low.

For its part Fine Gael has resorted to scare tactics. They sent off some of their key party strategists to London to speak to Cameron’s strategists to learn from last year’s British election results. The result is a strategy largely based on fear - a vote for anyone else but them is a vote for chaos.

The problem is that the chaos in the health system and the rise in homelessness and the mean spirited cuts to welfare supports were taken by Fine Gael and Labour.

But what these parties can’t avoid is that for the first time since partition there is now the real possibility of electing a progressive government in this state.

The leaders debate from Limerick University Concert Hall has helped bring a focus to this with the three establishment parties of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour (with Renua bringing up the rear) in the one corner and the left parties in the other.

Some months ago Sinn Féin signed up to the Right2Change campaign and to the principles that it embraces. One hundred and one of the candidates in the election are part of this.

Right2change has its roots in the hugely popular Right2Water campaign that emerged after the introduction of water charges. It is supported by Unite, the Communications Workers Union and Mandate and many community groups, independents and political parties, including Sinn Féin.

Essentially its objective is to provide a left alternative to the cosy smug consensus of the establishment parties – the three Amigos of Enda, Joan, and Micheál. To that end those who are part of the campaign have agreed ‘Policy Principles for a Progressive Irish government’.

These principles cover the minimum obligation for any progressive Irish government; including the right to water, decent work, housing, health, debt justice, education, democratic reform, equality, a sustainable environment and national resources.

Right2Change ‘seeks a fairer, more equal Ireland that benefits all of the people rather than a select few’.

It includes at the heart of its programme the 1916 Proclamation: “The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally...”

The Right2Change principles outline a new vision, a different choice and a realistic alternative to the politics of the past and the establishment parties. It provides the opportunity to end the domination of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Elements of the conservative media have been busy trying to spin the yarn that the election is ‘boring’. The truth is very different. In my travels across this state there is a clear desire for change. For new politics.

February 26^thcan be a historic game changer for politics in this part of the island. It offers a stark choice between the old self-serving politics of cronyism, corruption and looking after the golden circles and elites, and a new politics that is accountable, transparent, people centred.

As their poll numbers have dipped Fine Gael and Labour have intensified their negative politics. Expect more of this before Friday the 26th.

So, this is not a time to lose focus. In this centenary year of the Rising we have the opportunity to begin the process of building a real Republic, a genuine all-island, 32 county Republic where people are citizens, not subjects. The message is simple. More of the same, or a government that delivers on the promise of the 1916 Proclamation.

And if you have the time why not come to the Right2Change – Right2Water rally in Dublin this Saturday at 2pm kicking off at Parnell Square.

On Sunday February 14^th the Sunday Independent carried an article from Labour Leader Joan Burton in which she claimed that I didn’t understand this state. I wrote a response. The Sunday Independent refused to carry it yesterday.

So, for those who are interested in what I said this is the response the Independent refused to publish.

Hope over fear by Gerry Adams TD

I was disappointed but not surprised by Joan Burton’s opinion piece in last week’s Sunday Independent, which highlighted a deeply partitionist, ‘little Irelander’ attitude on the part of the Tánaiste.

Despite what Joan Burton claims I never used the phrase ‘'them others' during last week’s TV3 Leaders Debate or at any other time for that matter.

However, she is correct when she says that I differentiate Sinn Féin from the establishment parties of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour.

She is also correct in stating that those parties have a shared history and experience in Government. But it is not a history to be proud of.

Like the Unionists in the North, these establishment parties have dominated Irish politics since Partition and have been responsible for the deeply conservative political culture which has been to the disadvantage of the vast majority of citizens.

The legacy of the Labour Party in Government over the past five years is a litany of broken promises and failing to stand up for working people or vulnerable citizens.

Labour claimed it would stand up to the European Central Bank but instead of ‘Labour’s way’, we got ‘Frankfurt’s way’.

Labour claimed it was going into Government to protect citizens from the ravages of Fine Gael. Remember the infamous Tesco-like ad? Instead, Labour Ministers were the most enthusiastic in imposing vicious cuts to the living standards of average families.

As a senior Cabinet member, Joan Burton oversaw the implementation of Water Charges, the Family Home Tax, cuts to child benefit, removal of medical cards, cuts to health and welfare, and a succession of stealth taxes.

Joan Burton's attacks on Sinn Féin and her personalised and offensive invective against me are getting increasingly desperate as each day of the election campaign passes.

That is hardly surprising as the Labour Party is facing the imminent wrath of the electorate for its litany of broken promises in Government.

But citizens see through this. They look at the leadership provided by Sinn Féin.

They look at the type of change that we helped deliver in the peace process.

They look at things that they never believed were possible – a power sharing government in the north. If we had listened to the Dublin parties including Labour there would be no political institutions at this time.

As Joan Burton openly admits, a vote for Labour in this election is a vote for another Fine Gael-led Government with all the attendant hardship that entails for citizens. James Connolly would never countenance that.

Labour’s time is up. Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour have alternated the Government since the foundation of the State.

There is a widespread desire for change. The establishment parties know this. In desperation the government has resorted to trying to scare the electorate. Just like Fianna Fáil in 2007.

Fine Gael and Labour are promoting the entirely spurious position that a progressive government will undermine the two tier recovery.

People are sick of the old politics of the establishment parties and have a desire and a hunger to see something new. For the first time ever, that’s now possible and it is incumbent on all of us who share that desire to seize the opportunity for change in this, the centenary year of the 1916 Rising.

The choice is simple - a new Government backed by costed, comprehensive, and deliverable policies and the Right2Change principles that will deliver a fair recovery than benefits all of our citizens, or a Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil/Labour carve-up, backed by the politics of fear.

Citizens know the only choice next Friday is between a Fine Gael-led Government or a progressive, Sinn Féin-led Government committed to ending austerity and implementing fairer policies based on equality and social justice.

By the time you read this column/blog the election will be all but over bar the most important bit – the peoples vote on Friday. Today it’s over to the electorate in the 26 counties to decide which parties will make up the next government in Dublin. We will know their decision at the weekend.

For readers in the north it will come as no surprise that the entirely negative and partitionist attitude of the Irish establishment toward the people of this part of the island disappointingly emerged frequently in recent weeks.

First, it was an opinion piece in the Sunday Independent two weeks ago from the Labour leader Joan Burton in which she unsurprisingly took 600 words to reveal her deeply partitionist, ‘little Irelander’ side. According to Joan, and because I come from the north, I don’t understand ‘the Republic’. I suspect the elections results will show that she understands it even less.

More disturbing was a studio discussion I had with Meath Fine Gael TD Regina Doherty whose attitude to victims in the north shocked many who heard or subsequently read her remarks. Along with mise and Emma Coffey, a candidate from Fianna Fáil, we were all in Drogheda for a discussion on the local LMFM radio – which covers counties Louth and Meath.

In the course of it the issue of legacy matters arising out of the conflict came up. When Ms Doherty attacked me on this issue I reminded her that the family of Seamus Ludlow have taken the government to court because of its refusal to implement the Barron Commission proposal for a Commission of Investigation. Seamus Ludlow was killed by Unionist paramilitaries in collusion with members of the British forces in May 1976.

I also reminded her of the two Dundalk men, Hugh Watters and Jack Rooney, who were killed in an explosion at Kay’s Tavern in December 1975 an attack also carried out with the collusion of British forces.

I was making the case that all victims needed to be treated equally and their families needed to be supported and helped to find closure where that is possible. In trying to explain why this is not an academic issue for me or for Sinn Féin I also said:

“When I talk about people who have been bereaved or who are grieving, it isn't an academic exercise… Two members of my family were killed, one by unionist paramilitaries and the other by the British Army. My sister was six months pregnant when her husband was killed in Ballymurphy by the Parachute Regiment. My brother was seriously shot; I have been shot.

My family home has been bombed, my office has been bombed, in my constituency office in west Belfast – three people in the waiting room were killed.”

Regina Doherty’s response was; “All brought on by your own actions, Gerry.”

So, according to Doherty I am responsible for the RUC officer, Allen Moore, who came to my office and using a shotgun killed two constituency workers Pat McBride (40) and Paddy Loughran (61) and Michael O'Dwyer (21), who had called into the office with his two-year-old son to seek advice on a local constituency issue.

Regrettably these truly awful comments are part and parcel of the narrative of the establishment parties – Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour – when it comes to addressing the consequences of partition and the impact of the conflict.

In their world – as former Fine Gael leader John Bruton likes to claim at every opportunity – the Rising was wrong. It wasn’t necessary. The British were going to concede independence anyway.

And when partition created the conditions for recurring conflict in the north it was everyone else’s fault except the British or the unionists. Forget the violent suppression by the RUC of the civil rights campaign; or the permanent existence and use of the Special Powers Act; or the institutional political, economic and religious discrimination against Catholics; or the violence of the unionist state and of unionist paramilitary groups; or of British state collusion; or of shoot-to-kill; or the torture of detainees. Forget all of that. None of it matters. In the narrative of the establishment parties and of politicians like Regina Doherty it was all the fault of republicans.

In the south the issue of victims is only introduced by these parties in a narrow self-serving manner – mainly during elections but also in the cut and thrust of Dáil debates when they want to distract from their bad decisions in cutting benefits or allowances or their cosy arrangements with developers and bankers and the golden circles.

Between elections these same parties are deaf to the wishes of victims, and especially of the need to get the British government to honour its commitments on legacy agreements and to end its legal and political obstruction to families getting to the truth.

Like the Unionists in the North, these establishment parties have dominated Irish politics since partition and have been responsible for the deeply conservative political culture which has been to the disadvantage of the vast majority of citizens.

We shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. Throughout the years of war successive Irish governments embraced the British narrative. In the USA they supported Britain’s efforts to prevent the passing of the McBride anti-discrimination laws to tackle discrimination in the north. They refused to engage with the peace process and when they eventually did they consistently failed to defend Irish national interests while acquiescing to the demands of successive British governments.

Toward the end of the recent negotiations both Fianna Fáil and the Fine Gael/Labour government supported the adjournment or the suspension of the political institutions in the north. Why? Because they thought it would damage Sinn Féin. For no other reason. Local partisan politics were more important that the imperative of the peace process.

And so it is with the issue of victims. Ignored for most of the year some cases are opportunistically exploited if Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour think it can impact negatively on Sinn Féin. The fact is that there is a lot of mock outrage against Sinn Fein from these parties which trivialises the issue of victims.

If Sinn Féin and the unionist parties in the north behaved in this way then there would be no work done there. There would be no peace process.

And incidentally it’s worth pointing out that none of these parties had this problem with the Workers Party or Democratic Left back in the day when they served in coalition governments with these parties or when Democratic Left took over the leadership of the Labour Party. .

For Sinn Féin and for me the issue of victims is not just an issue for elections. It is an issue which we address every single day, talking to victims; speaking to groups that represent them; and pushing the Irish and British governments to honour their commitments on this issue.

On Monday Fine Gael’s Regina Doherty represented Fine Gael very well. The deaths and injuries of victims of the British state and of unionist paramilitaries were and I quote, all brought on by their own actions.

Tuesday was the 35^th anniversary of the first day of Bobby Sands’s hunger strike. Much has been written about the traumatic events of that time; of the death of the hunger strikers, and the political and historical importance of the hunger strike. For many it was our 1916 – a watershed moment that changed the course of politics on this island.

It is worth recalling that in 1981 Sinn Féin had one lone MP. Bobby had been elected as a prisoner candidate MP for Fermanagh South Tyrone and on his death he was replaced by Owen Carron. Ciaran Doherty and Paddy Agnew had been elected as two prisoner TDs.

Today, Sinn Féin receives the largest vote of any party on the island of Ireland. In the north there are 29 Sinn Féin MLAs, including five Ministers in the Executive, and four MPs. Across the island we have four MEPs, and over 260 local government councillors and three Senators. Following last week’s election, and at the time of writing with the Longford–Westmeath still in play, there will be an increased Sinn Féin team of 23 TDs entering the Dáil next week.

We stand on the shoulders of others.

I want to thank everyone who voted for Sinn Féin last week. Go raibh maith agaibh also to all of our candidates and our families.

Sinn Féin went into the election with the objective to get rid of a very bad Fine Gael and Labour government. We have succeeded in that. We also set ourselves the goal of seeking a mandate to be in government. That was always going to be a challenge.

At the conclusion of some very long counts Sinn Féin has 23 seats. That’s the best result the party has achieved since 1923. We have secured a significant increase in our vote as well as in the geographical spread of the party across the state. We also secured greater numbers of transfers than ever before.

At the start of this election Sinn Féin had 14 TDs. We are now the third largest party in the 26 counties. All of our candidates did very well and some, including in Donegal, Wexford and Dublin West, hit the cross bar. We did not match our full potential at this time but we had a very good election.

Labour has suffered probably its’ worst ever election result. In 2011 Labour won 37 seats. Along the way some of their TDs jumped ship and in this election they ended with 7 TDs. In 2011 Fine Gael received 36% of the vote and won 76 seats. This year that figure is done to 50. Which is also one less than they won in 2007.

Fianna Fáil saw a resurgence in their vote. But it is worth remembering that this election still remains the second worst election result for the party since its foundation. In 2007 Fianna Fáil commanded 42% of the vote and had 77 seats. In 2011 that dropped to 20. The extra votes and seats for Fianna Fáil were not unexpected. Despite the drubbing that party took in the 2011 election their grass roots organisation, which has been built up over decades of government, remained largely intact.

The drama of this election – of who won and who lost - has now shifted to the machinations of forming a government. Fine Gael remains the largest party on 50 seats. Fianna Fáil has 44 seats. Sinn Féin has 23 seats. Labour has 7; the Social Democrats have 3. The AAAPBP have 6; the Greens have 2; the Independent Alliance – a loose alliance of independents has 6; and then there are 17 independents.

It is a dolly mixture of parties, politics and personalities. Somehow a minimum of 79 TDs have to agree a common platform and programme for government if a new government is to be formed. Can it be done? The radio shows, the news programme and the newspaper columns are full of speculation about who will do business with whom.

All of this amounts to a sham fight between the establishment parties. However they construct their arrangement it will have no long term impact on the numbers of citizens homeless or on the housing lists or those on trolleys in the emergency departments.

Sinn Féin went into the election to provide a progressive alternative to the establishment parties. We succeeded in that. We said we would stand up for citizens and for those who have suffered most from Fine Gael/Labour and Fianna Fáil governments. We will continue to do that.

We also made it clear that we will not prop up the establishment parties that created and have sustained the crisis. That is the mandate we received. That is the mandate we will honour. Sinn Féin will not play junior partner to either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.

In my view none of these parties will do anything substantially different from what they have done in the past. All of the talk of Dáil reform has been heard before.

However, no one should lose sight of the fact that this election has witnessed a significant shift in the political landscape. Where once Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil reigned supreme, with Labour occasionally tugging its forelock and bolstering one or the other, their supremacy has now been further eroded. Ten years ago the two big establishment parties held 70% of the vote. Today that has dropped sharply to just under 50%.

As I write this Sinn Féin is speaking to others who have been elected; to the smaller parties and the independents, to see what common ground there is between us and whether we can agree how we collectively approach the next Dáil session. Sinn Fein, smaller parties and Independents represent almost half the electorate. Although some of these smaller parties and individuals represent a wide political spectrum this is a significant achievement.

But be in no doubt that republicans would have done marginally better but for the barrage of negative campaigning that was targeted at Sinn Féin by the establishment parties and their lackeys in the conservative press. That negativity probably cost one or two points and several seats. We also made some mistakes organisationally but every election is a learning process and it’s up to us to learn the lessons and implement them.

At the beginning of this campaign as I travelled around the constituencies I reminded everyone of Connolly’s New Year message for 1916. He said: “…opportunities are for those who seize them”. Many opportunities have now arisen as a result of this election and this will be enhanced by the Assembly election in May – we must grasp all of these with both hands.

In 1966 Nelson’s Pillar was blown up in O’Connell Street in Dublin. It was a hugely symbolic and largely popular act which took place four weeks before the 50^th anniversary celebrations of the 1916 Rising.

A group of Belfast teachers responded by producing one of the most popular songs of the period - ‘Up went Nelson’ - which stayed at number one in the Irish charts for eight weeks.

“One early mornin' in the year of '66
A band of Irish laddies were knockin' up some tricks
They thought Horatio Nelson had overstayed a mite
So they helped him on his way with some sticks of gelignite”

Four weeks later I was one of thousands in Belfast who took part in the Easter 50^thanniversary of the Rising. It was one of the biggest commemorations ever held in the city. The Falls Road was packed with marching men and women and thousands more lined the route to the republican plot in Milltown cemetery. It was a formidable expression of solidarity with those who had participated in the Rising and a manifestation of the determination of Irish republicans to continue the struggle for Irish freedom and independence.

This Easter Sunday history will be made as Belfast republicans follow in the footsteps of those who walked the Falls Road in 1966. The commemoration will gather at 11.45 and leave Divis Tower at 12.15 pm. It will then make its way to the Republican Plot in Milltown.

It will be a spectacular celebration of 1916 including hundreds of participants in period dress. As in 1966 the parade will be led by an Irish Wolfhound. People in period dress representing the leaders of the rising will led the rest of the parade and will be followed by a full flag bearing colour party in period dress. Other participants will include former political prisoners, the GAA and representatives from many of the local clubs in west Belfast. The families of our patriot dead will carry photographs of their loved ones. And a large delegation from the American Labour Movement will also be joining us.

There will be pageantry from the Brassneck Theatre Company at various locations in the cemetery and on the specially erected stage truck that will be situated at the side of the republican plot.

It’s all shaping up to be an exciting and emotive day. I’m looking forward to it. Belfast is always special at Easter time. The crowds are enthusiastic and the turn-out is impressive and this year promises to be the best in decades.

The centenary of the 1916 Rising will also be marked across the island. Tens of thousands of citizens in towns, villages and cities, at country crossroads, up isolated bóithríns, and in lonely hillside graveyards will gather in every corner of Ireland. Wreaths will be laid, words of pride and honour will be said and the last post and laments will sound out.

In the United States and Canada; in Australia and Britain, and in other locations around the world similar commemorations will take place.

As we participate in these events it is important that we appreciate that those who took part were ordinary men and women who were enthused by the desire for freedom and justice and who went to extraordinary lengths – even to making the supreme sacrifice – to advance those objectives.

Their goal was to undo centuries of colonisation by building a new future; a better future. The astonishing bravery of the women and men who participated in that seminal Rising is a huge source of wonderment and pride a century later.

The more I read of the steadfastness and resolve of the leaders’ who faced death with great dignity and courage I stand in amazement of them.

Many years ago, in 1971, I read ‘Last Words’. It is a remarkable book that contains the last written words of the men who were executed in the weeks after the Rising. 100 years later their words still resonate across the century.

The words and poems of Pearse, the personal letters from those about to be executed to their wives and family, the words of defiance spoken at court martials, stir the heart all of these years later. In his address to the court martial on May 2^nd 1916 Thomas MacDonagh spoke of the importance of the Proclamation for its time and ours.

“The Proclamation of the Irish Republic has been adduced in evidence against me as one of the signatories; you think it already a dead and buried letter, but it lives, it lives. From minds alight with Ireland’s vivid intellect it sprang, in hearts aflame with Ireland’s mighty love it was conceived. Such documents do not die.”

1916 was a transformative moment in Irish history. On Easter Sunday we will remember those events and those who participated in them with pride.

Sean Cronin, writer and revolutionary, wrote of them:

“None considered himself a hero but all were heroes…

They were ordinary men and women and their military training was minimal

– in that lies their glory – they believed that Ireland should be free

– in that lies their greatness.”

See you on the Falls Road on Sunday.

Easter Sunday on the Falls Road in west Belfast last weekend had the four seasons in the space of a few hours. As we gathered in Conway St. the sun was shining. It was cold but the air had the feel of a sharp, crisp spring day. The clouds rolled in and for a time it was overcast and autumn-like. The clouds rolled on and the sun shone. The sky was a sharp blue and the temperature rose. Summer had arrived.

But as we entered Milltown cemetery the clouds returned, low and ominous. They swept in. A cold piercing wind preceded the hailstones that pounded our heads and the ground.

The umbrellas mushroomed throughout the crowds. One in front of me almost immediately blew inside out. The coats were pulled up. And the heads went down.

None of this deterred the thousands who had come to take part in, or to watch the centenary Easter march of the Rising of 1916.

My morning began in Conway Mill were I met with the families of our Belfast patriot dead. Their courage and resilience in the face of grievous loss remains an inspiration for us all. The Belfast National Graves presented each family with a medallion in memory of Winifred Carney. Carney was a trade union activist, friend and associate of James Connolly, a member of Cumann na mBan, and she took part in the occupation of the GPO in 1916. Afterward she was imprisoned by the British.

We were joined by a delegation of Irish American trade unionists led by Terry O’Sullivan from the International Labourer’s Union of North America, and Irish American activists, including some from Friends of Sinn Féin in the USA and Canada. They had especially travelled to Ireland to take part in the centenary events.

Outside the families gathered in Conway St. to join the main parade as it made its way from Divis Tower to Milltown Cemetery. The footpaths and roads were packed to overflowing by the crowds of people. When the leading colour party reached us it faced the relatives and in an act of recognition and solidarity they dipped their flags and stood in silence in honour of the relatives and of their loved ones who paid the supreme sacrifice. It was a poignant moment. The silence was only broken by the drone of the PSNI helicopter hovering overhead.

And then it was onto Milltown. All along the Falls - as we made our way slowly up the road - the young, and not so young, and the older generation, were there in their thousands applauding and shouting words of encouragement. I knew many of the faces in the crowds of onlookers. Belfast citizens without whose loyalty and support we could not have advanced.

Many of those taking part in the parade were wearing the uniforms of 100 years ago – of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army. Like the 50^th centenary parade that took place in 1966 a huge wolfhound led the way. I was there that day also. We marched to Casement Park that day. I had just started working in the Ark Bar on the Old Lodge Road. Some of the working class unionist customers spotted me in the TV coverage. They gave me a good slagging but that was the height of it.

It was a wonderful day. Everyone was in great spirits. There was a strong sense of community, of unity, of being part of something great. Yes, it was about remembering the past but we should never lose sight of the fact that those who fought in 1916, or in subsequent generations, had their eye on the future - a different future – a better future.

And as we approach the Assembly elections on May 5^th – Bobby Sands anniversary - that must also be our focus.

The Peace Process and the Good Friday Agreement have marked a historic shift in politics on this island. For the first time, the roots of conflict have been addressed and a democratic route to Irish unity opened up. But there is much yet to be done. Hurts must be healed. Divisions ended. The scourge of sectarianism must be tackled and ended.
With each election the Sinn Féin vote grows and the number of elected representatives increases. Last month’s general election in the south saw Sinn Féin win 23 seats. Next month we expect to double our representation in the Seanad – and we hope this will include our comrade Niall O’Donnghaile from the Short Strand.

But it’s what Irish republicans do with this political strength that is really important. Sinn Féin is now the main opposition party in the Dáil.

Last week the new Sinn Féin team of TDs travelled to Stormont to meet Martin McGuinness and the strong Assembly teams.

In the Assembly Sinn Fein has been the driving force behind the progressive measures that have blocked water charges, protected free prescriptions and defended welfare payments and promoted the Irish language.

Despite the Irish and British government’s negativity Sinn Féin has delivered the Fresh Start deal which protects core public services, particularly in health and education and the most vulnerable in our society.

After the Assembly election we want to emerge with a stronger mandate.

A mandate that will allow us to continue with our work; a mandate to tackle sectarianism, racism, and homophobia; a mandate to deliver marriage equality; and a mandate to deliver a future of equals, in a society of equals for all our citizens.

A mandate that will help us advance the goals of freedom and unity and independence.

How we do this will be hugely guided by the 1916 Proclamation. That is for me the most important aspect of the Rising. It remains the mission statement for Irish republicans today. It is a freedom charter for all the people of this island which guarantees religious and civil liberty and promotes equal rights and opportunities for all citizens. These are the principles on which Sinn Féin stands.

On April 22^nd and 23^rd in Dublin Sinn Féin will hold our Ard Fheis. On Sunday April 24^th – the actual day of the Rising one hundred years ago - there will be a huge march in Dublin to celebrate that event. It is a citizen’s initiative which has our support, as well as the backing of artists, trade unionists and academics and is chaired by the artist Robert Ballagh.

So, why not join us on April 24^th in Dublin. Our task as Irish citizens must be that when the centenary has come and gone that there is more left behind that a memory of a good day out.

The reactionaries and revisionists, the naysayers and begrudgers, the modern day Redmonites who pontificate and waffle about how wrong 1916 was, are wrong.

1916 was right.

The men and women of the Rising were right.

It was Republic against Empire.

Republicanism versus Imperialism.

We know what side we are on.

We stand by and for the Republic.

See you in Dublin on the 24^th.

Micheál Martin is a man with a mission. To trample on the politics of those whose roots are in the radical republican tradition of Tone and Emmet and Pearse and Connolly and to rewrite Irish history in the image of a so-called constitutionalist revisionist republican narrative. In this narrative republican history ended in the GPO in Dublin and Fianna Fáil are the inheritors of the vision of 1916. The rest of us are upstarts, or worse.
So, a Micheál Martin speech at Bodenstown or in the Dáil or at Arbour Hill, where the leaders are buried, would not be complete without an attack on Sinn Féin. I suppose we should take some comfort from this. Teachta Martin does it because he fears the growth of Sinn Féin and the message of radical republicanism that we espouse.
This has been especially evident in recent months when during and after the general election the one thing that all Fianna Fáil spokespersons agreed on was their hostility to Sinn Féin emerging as the official opposition in the Dáil. The last eight weeks of negotiations over the formation of a government have been as much about that as anything else, as the Fianna Fáil leadership tries to construct an outcome in which it supports Enda Kenny in government on the one hand while pretending to be opposed to him on the other.
Micheál was at it again this weekend at his party’s centenary event at Arbour Hill. His speech majored on negativity and invective but offered no message of hope. Instead he sought to rationalise why Fianna Fáil will support the return of a Fine Gael government. He said he would even agree to Labour being back in government! What an abandonment of his electoral commitments and of the mandate he claimed Fianna Fáil was given not to put Enda Kenny and Joan Burton back into power!

But much of his time was spent attacking Sinn Féin – again. Not only do his remarks reveal how far he will go to misrepresent politics in the north but they are evidence of how far this Fianna Fáil leader has departed from the principles and vision that marks the Good Friday Agreement.

For decades Fianna Fáil posed as 'the republican party' while wielding power in the interests of visitors to the Galway Tent as opposed to those of ordinary citizens. Now under Micheál Martin’s leadership they are reinventing themselves as the party of fairness and reform. Even though this is a response to Sinn Féin successes it is to be welcomed.

The centenary celebrations of the 1916 Easter Rising have brought these issues into sharp focus along with the ideals and courage and heroism of the men and women of that period. For them the Proclamation was a Proclamation of a new society – a new Ireland – a real Republic. IN this centenary year the southern establishment parties and sections of the media fear this growing awareness about the men and women of 1916, what they fought for and why the British killed them in an effort to destroy the Republic they had proclaimed.

The Fianna Fáil leadership may defend the actions of 1916 but they want republican history and the legitimacy of that revolutionary option to end there. For their own narrow party political interests there has to be a line drawn between Terence McSwiney and Bobby Sands; between Thomas Ashe and Francie Hughes; between Countess Markievicz and Mairead Farrell.

So, revisionism is alive and well. Alongside Fianna Fáil’s efforts to shape 1916 in its own image there is an unprecedented campaign in some media and political circles to downgrade this seminal event in our nation’s history, and to denigrate many of those who took a leading part in it.
The popular response to, and the genuine pride, in centenary events has highlighted the unacceptability of that position. For our part Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin agree that there would be no Irish state, no level of independence and no amount of sovereignty, however limited, for Ireland but for the revolutionary republican tradition.
The others argue that the 1916 Rising was unnecessary. They demand to know by what right and what authority did the 1916 Revolutionaries launch a rebellion? They also seek to elevate what has been termed the ‘constitutional nationalist tradition’ in Irish history at the expense of the revolutionary republican tradition.

They ignore the reality that in the Ireland of 1916 there was no democracy. Repression and militarism were the means by which British interests in Ireland were defended.

Armed resistance was an appropriate response to that. Some who went on to become founder members of Fianna Fáil were part of that resistance. Micheál Martin could not easily disown them, even, and I doubt this, if that is his position.

But he does repudiate in the most vindictive terms those who employed the same methods in our time.

As we move beyond the centenary of 1916 and the revolutionary period to consider the events of the counter-revolution, the civil war, partition, the establishment of two conservative states, and the evolution of Fianna Fáil, there will be many interesting topics to discuss.

The fact is the counter revolutionaries won and the southern state developed into a narrow-minded, mean spirited place which was harsh on the poor, on women and on republicans or radicals of any kind.

Many of the scandals that we have witnessed in that state in recent years are a product of this post-colonial condition. This then was the reality that unfolded in place of the Republic which the 1916 Rising sought to bring about. This was the state constructed by conservative nationalists in the 'constitutional' tradition.

This is the political system which saw the establishment parties in the Irish state – including Fianna Fáil – abandon the citizens of the north; acquiesce to partition; then actively defend it.

Partition and the apartheid type system of governance in the north created the conditions for armed conflict. If 1916 had never happened this was a very likely outcome not least because successive Irish government made no real or consistent effort to engage the British government on its obligations and responsibilities to uphold and promote the rights of all citizens in the six counties.

Instead when the British state resisted the civil rights demands Dublin acquiesced to the British strategy of militarisation. It was in that vacuum that the IRA – which was almost non-existent – came back to life. The continued existence of the revolutionary tradition and its physical force tendency made that more likely, but not inevitable. The democratic, secular and revolutionary tradition of republicanism in Ireland dates back to Wolfe Tone and the 1798 Rebellion. Inspired by the American and French revolutions those progressives and radicals set their faces against sectarianism and in favour of equality, freedom and solidarity.

It is this noble tradition and upon these core values, espoused again in the 1916 Proclamation, that Sinn Féin makes our stand.

Some of this was under consistent and ongoing attack during the long years of conflict but it was the revolutionary republican tradition that recognised the stalemate that had developed and which actively sought to create and build a peace process. It was the initiatives of the IRA and the peace strategy of Sinn Féin, along with the contribution of others, which created the opportunity to end the war and create an alternative way forward.

As a consequence, and for the first time, the roots of conflict were addressed and a democratic route to Irish unity opened up.
Those who subscribed unapologetically to the Irish republican and revolutionary tradition were to the fore in achieving this.

Micheál Martin could play a leadership role in the necessary process of making Irish unity a reality. There is an imperative on him to do so.

That would require him working with the rest of us who are wedded to that objective. That of course is much more challenging than his current stance. It would also be much more in the interests of the people of this island.

Against the backdrop of a crisp beautiful Sunday morning in Dublin the raised voices of thousands echoed in song along O’Connell Street.

“When boyhood's fire was in my blood
I read of ancient freemen,
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
Three hundred men and three men;
And then I prayed I yet might see
Our fetters rent in twain,
And Ireland, long a province, be.
A Nation once again!

A Nation once again,
A Nation once again,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!”

A Nation once again,
A Nation once again,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!”

Thomas Davis was one of the founding leaders of the Young Ireland Movement in the 1840s and was responsible for some of the best nationalist ballads of that period. He published them in The Nation newspaper. A ‘Nation once again’ is among his best known works and Davis published it in July 1844.

Sinn Féin had organised the event to celebrate exactly 100 years from the commencement of the 1916 Rising and Pearse’s historic reading of the Proclamation at the front of the GPO. In bright sunshine Micheál MacDonnacha, dressed as a Volunteer and Lynn Boylann, dressed in the uniform of Cumann na mBán, introduced the many flags associated with the struggle for freedom and these were accompanied by large posters of each of the leaders of the Rsing, including some, like Tomas Ashe who died subsequently on hunger strike.

Later Martin McGuinness and I joined tens of thousands of citizens, some dressed in period costume, as we walked from Merrion Square to O’Connell Street. The “Reclaim the Vision” march was a citizen’s initiative organised by among others Robert Ballagh. That too was an inspiring event.

The Sinn Féin Ard Fheis on Friday evening and Saturday saw thousands of delegates participate. It was professional, well managed and saw scores of Sinn Féin activists, including many of our new TDs, make thoughtful contributions on over 100 motions on wide ranging issues affecting citizens on this island and internationally.

Some in the media described it as ‘lack-lustre’. But then they generally don’t get republicans. They rarely catch the mood or recognise the underlying changes that are taking place. The Ard Fheis reflected a party in transition. An all-Ireland party developing policy for all sections of our people, in all parts of the country. A growing party, with a breadth of membership in terms of geographical spread and age and gender.

In the last election we had 23 TDs elected. This week seven Sinn Féin Senators were elected to the Seanad, including Belfast Councillor Niall O’Donnghaile from the Short Strand. That's more than double what we had previously.

Next Thursday May 5^th – the anniversary of the death on hunger strike of my friend and comrade Bobby Sands – there will an election to the Assembly.

My first ever election was to the Assembly established by British Secretary of State Jim Prior in 1982. It was in the aftermath of the hunger strike and was part of our evolving electoral strategy. There were five Sinn Feiners elected on that occasion on an abstentionist platform and I had the honour to stand for and be elected to represent the people of west Belfast.

I am very honoured to have represented this strong forward looking vibrant community. And in very difficult times the people of west Belfast provided real leadership.

On this occasion we have a strong team of five MLAs seeking re-election:Jennifer McCann; Pat Sheehan; Fra McCann; Rosie McCorley and Alex Maskey. It is a tough battle to hold five out of six seats but it is doable.

They along with our Councillors and Paul Maskey MP have helped transform west Belfast. This would have been impossible without the support of the people of the constituency. In this centenary year of the 1916 Rising their work needs to continue.

Sinn Féin doesn’t take the voters for granted. Our commitment to the electorate is to build on the progress that has been made. To deliver well-paid jobs, especially for our young people. To defend the health service and to continue the redevelopment of the RVH. To support business and build safer communities and ensure that our children get the education and opportunities they need and deserve.

Of course, more jobs are needed; and more homes; and issues like Casement Park, and La Salle School need ongoing attention.The Fresh Start Agreement too needs fully implemented.

Only Sinn Féin candidates are committed to this and will stand up to the bluster of those unionists who seek to attack Irish medium education. We are also the only party committed to the implementation of the rights of citizens, including, worker’s rights, women’s rights, Irish language rights, civil rights, LGBT rights and the rights of citizens with disabilities.

The Assembly election provides an opportunity to build on Sinn Féin’s success in the recent Dáil election and to advance the republican goals of the men and women of 1916 - Irish unity and equality. No other local candidates have this objective.

This is a big challenge. Our opponents say we cannot get five MLAs elected again. They underestimate the people of west Belfast. On May the west Belfast electorate has the opportunity to take another decisive step forward by voting for the best west Belfast Sinn Féin team and our five candidates.

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