Unionists think Sinn Fein is fit for power in Northern Ireland, so it is little wonder Irish voters think the same in the Republic

We let murderers out of jail and perverted the justice system so as to accommodate republicans.

In so doing, we sent a message to the world that the crimes they were convicted of were different.

They were crimes which no longer had to be paid for once a political deal was reached.

We let murderers and those convicted of attempted murder into government and perverted the democratic system in order to accommodate republicans.

In so doing each and every unionist who sat in an executive with the likes of Martin McGuinness and Jennifer McCann cannot wash their hands of democratic and moral corruption.

We all knew the PIRA murdered Paul Quinn in October 2007 yet the powers that be chose to ignore it to accommodate republicans. The deal the DUP had struck with a party that is regarded as the IRA’s political wing five months earlier was judged to be more important.

The graveyards of Ulster bear testimony to sacrifice paid by the RUC and the UDR in facing down terrorism in our land yet unionists agreed a deal with apologists for their murderers about how to deal with the legacy of violence to accommodate republicans.

We sat back and did nothing, even when unionism held the balance of power at Westminster, to challenge a perverse definition of victim which equates those the IRA murdered with their murderers in order to accommodate republicans.

In recent talks on the future of Northern Ireland a deal to restore devolution was hailed as a tremendous step forward with few concerned that the document was, in content and presentation, a joint production of our own sovereign government in London and the Dublin administration — something permitted to accommodate republicans.

Now having conceded the principle of a southern role in our internal affairs unionism faces the prospect of a Sinn Fein minister filling the role Simon Coveney performed in future.

Finally, in agreeing to re-enter government with republicans unionists effectively wrote a character reference which every Sinn Fein candidate in the south could produce on every doorstep while canvassing.

Why should people listen to Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin saying Sinn Fein weren’t fit for government when the DUP and UUP obviously thought they were?

Having done so much to accommodate republicans in Northern Ireland doesn’t unionism have questions to answer about its role in promoting Sinn Fein’s agenda not just in our own country but in the Republic as well?

• Samuel Morrison is a member of Traditional Unionist Voice from Dromore, Co Down