SF focuses on southern economy

By Mark Devenport
BBC NI Political Editor

New SF vice-president Mary Lou McDonald greets Gerry Adams

Martin McGuinness told delegates at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis that Northern Ireland was no longer an Orange state.

But there was at least one 'Orangeman' who was keen to meet the deputy first minister - a Dutch coin collector attending a coin fair in the same venue as the Sinn Féin annual conference, who was keen to get Mr McGuinness's signature.

Whilst the collectors pored over their coins and notes next door, the Sinn Féin activists also concentrated on money matters.

In line with the popular mood across the Irish Republic, the talk was all about "fat cats", allegedly corrupt bankers and the so-called "Golden Circle" of favoured investors.

Apart from lambasting this elite for squandering the wealth generated during the Celtic Tiger years, the Sinn Féin leadership concentrated on pinning the blame on the Irish government.

'Left turn'

Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan has questioned the patriotism of those southern shoppers who have flocked north of the border in recent months to benefit from the fall in sterling.

Gerry Adams picked up on that, telling Mr Lenihan that the patriotic thing would be for him to resign and to take all his ministerial colleagues with him.

For those of us used to watching Sinn Féin cosy up to successive Fianna Fail leaders as part of a potential "pan-nationalist" coalition, it seemed slightly strange to watch Mr Adams sketch out a shift towards a broad left front.

He held out an olive branch to the Irish Labour party which, if recent opinion polls are to be believed, has benefitted from the wave of anti-government sentiment.

Fianna Fail, he portrayed as just another conservative party alongside Fine Gael.

Gerry Adams called on the Irish government to resign

Successive speakers made the argument that the party did not have to choose between nationalism and its left-leaning economic policies.

Gerry Adams invoked quotations from the First Dail and the hunger striker Bobby Sands to prove this point.

The challenge, however, is to convince Irish voters.

Although the days when the party was simply regarded as the IRA's political wing are long gone, the brand image remains distinctively northern.

The promotion of Mary Lou McDonald to vice president is an effort to address this.

But the fact that the party's future southern standard-bearer failed to get elected to the Dail in the last election is a reminder of the scale of the challenge ahead.

Dissidents

If Gerry Adams spent much of his time looking south, Martin McGuinness concentrated on the north.

He argued that public confidence is sufficient for justice to be devolved now, and warned the DUP that the "old days and old ways" are gone forever.

But that brushed aside those areas in which the DUP has thwarted republican plans.

Gerry Adams insisted there would be an Irish language act without giving any detail of how the DUP culture minister's veto would be overturned.

Caitríona Ruane indicated she was "not for turning" on education without acknowledging that her guidelines omitting academic selection don't have the legal authority she would like.

On the dissidents, there was an interesting difference in emphasis between the new party chair Declan Kearney and his president.

Mr Kearney told the dissidents in forthright terms to disband, whilst Gerry Adams implied that the chief constable was using the dissident threat to justify a return to old policing methods.

In general, however, the message seemed to echo Bill Clinton's famous dictum: "It's the economy, stupid".

Whether disenchanted Irish voters buy Sinn Féin's arguments on this score will be easier to judge after the European and Irish local government elections in June.