Belfast not Dublin still calls the shots in Sinn Fein says Mairia Cahill

The former party activist, who spoke out about alleged abuse at the hands of an IRA man, said journalists have been trying for nine years to get an answer from the party leadership about whether they accept her account that the IRA used the party’s offices to interrogate her.

Ms Cahill told the News Letter: “For the last nine years, journalists have been asking SF leaders whether they accept the IRA used their party offices to question me about my sexual abuse. They have dodged this issue.”

Ms Cahill believes that SF president Mary Lou McDonald should make her position on the issue clear.

She said: “Mary Lou McDonald could finally take the reins of her party and answer it if she was in control. Her failure to do so, coupled with her recent flip-flop on the issue of the Israeli ambassador (after SF had a meeting in Belfast), leads me to believe that she either cannot or will not. Belfast still calls the shots.”

The Sinn Fein president recently stopped short of calling for the Israeli ambassador to Ireland to be expelled, but changed its stance after internal dissent, as well as criticism from left wing parties north and south of the border.

From a prominent republican family, Ms Cahill originally made a complaint to police in 2010 and subsequently waived her anonymity to speak publicly about her experience.

Sorca Clarke TD, who gave the opening address at this year’s Sinn Fein Ard Fheis last night, said in September that she did believe Ms Cahill’s claim.

When asked on RTE Radio if she believed that Ms Cahill was questioned by the IRA in a Sinn Fein office in 2000 Ms Clarke said: “I do actually. I have always found Mairia Cahill, that when she spoke, she was somebody who spoke about horrific experiences that happened to her. Not only during the abuse but also what happened afterwards was very wrong, that should never have happened.”

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein’s leader in Northern Ireland has told the party’s annual conference in Athlone that “the old Orange state” with a unionist majority is “long gone”.

In her keynote speech, Michelle O’Neill said the results of last year’s assembly elections must be “respected” as she criticised the DUP and called for the restoration of power-sharing in Northern Ireland.