John Walsh: Beware of SF’s siren song of seductive promises, and look at its record instead

If Sinn Féin gets into power and attempts to implement many of its stated policies, it will only be a matter of time before the country faces another day of reckoning

Pearse Doherty, Mary Lou McDonald and Rose Conway Walsh of Sinn Féin: ‘The party will eventually have to face the reality of its record in opposition.’ Picture: Brian Lawless/PA

Faisal Islam, who is now the BBC’s economics editor, was with Channel 4 News when Ireland entered the EU/IMF bailout programme in November 2010.

At that stage, he had reported extensively on other crisis-ridden countries on the periphery of the eurozone and in a lengthy blog post about his visit to Dublin he wrote that what struck him most was that even though Ireland had surrendered its economic sovereignty, there wasn’t any of the public ...