Editorial: Sinn Fein failure to sign letter condemning removal of Prison Service recruitment posters in Londonderry barely reported

Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill is the only one of the five main party leaders not to have signed a letter condemning the removal of Prison Service recruitment posters.

Terrorist supporting republicans in Londonderry had removed the advertising. Sinn Fein says its support for the prison system is unequivocal, yet it would not put its name to the joint approach.

The matter was discussed yesterday morning on radio’s BBC Nolan Show, which often breaks important stories, yet it was not examined by BBC NI news. It did not get reported on the BBC website, which has become such an important source of information in an age in which newspapers are under extreme pressure because younger generations have come to expect their news to be free - in part because of BBC online news. In other words, the priority of stories on BBC websites is of very great influence and thus importance. For much of yesterday morning the lead story was the departure of RTE’s director general.

Given the exhaustive coverage that has been given to joint political approaches that excluded unionists, such as the supportive approaches to Brussels to encourage them to stick with the NI Protocol, or indeed to joint political stances that specifically exclude the DUP, such as the UUP-backed demand to return to Stormont even prior to the recent modifications to the Irish Sea border, it is hard to imagine it would not have been much of a BBC news story if the DUP had been isolated in the way that SF was yesterday over prisons.

Yet SF's approach to such matters is of the utmost importance given its defence of past violence. The party, rightly, was immediate in its denunciation of the dissident terror attack on Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell. It is worrying thus to see a slight hesitation over prison officers.