T Ryle Dwyer reflects on IRA decommissioning in the Irish Examiner today, and underlines once again that the path being trodden by Sinn Fein looks very similar to the one previously travelled by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail.
As Dwyer notes, both of the latter parties had very shaky constitutional credentials when they took power.
For all his virtues and strengths, the credentials of Collins as constitutional democrat must be seriously questioned. He exhibited the same contempt for democracy as de Valera did in 1922. Both were primarily interested in power, and the politicians, who have been invoking their names ever since, are similarly interested only in power.
On coming to power in 1932, de Valera admitted he had underestimated the treaty. He had admitted 10 years earlier that his objections were only over a shadow, so the whole treaty controversy was over less than a shadow. And that has been the real difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael ever since. (Irish Examiner)
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