McElduff will be first test for new SF leadership

Labour Party Leader Brendan Howlin said today that the fate of Tyrone MP Barry McElduff constituted the first test of the new Sinn Féin leadership of Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill.

He said it is simply not acceptable that Sinn Féin’s new leadership do nothing about this incident.

Mr Howlin said:

“Mr McElduff’s assertions that he didn’t know what he was doing are simply not credible.  Instead, these implausible denials compound his original offence in which Mr McElduff mocks one of the most appalling atrocities of the troubles in which individual workmen were singled out for murder on the basis of their religious identity.

The suggestion that Mr McElduff is happy to meet with the relatives of the Kingsmill victims is a tried and tested Sinn Fein crisis management practice when one of its representatives lets the mask slip.

We will hear much in the next months about the changes in Sinn Fein. Now though is a chance for Mary Lou McDonald, the heir presumptive to the leadership in the Republic and Michelle O’Neill leader in the North, to make a clean break with past apologias.”