It was not an ordinary taxation case and Thomas 'Slab' Murphy is not a run-of-the-mill citizen. That is why the Special Criminal Court was involved. The sentence of 18 months for failing to make tax returns should be viewed in the context of Murphy's behaviour and the unexplained cash and cheques found by a raiding force involving 400 security personnel from both sides of the border in 2006. They were following a trail of money used to fund Provisional IRA activities.
Back then, Gerry Adams described Murphy as a "good republican" and "a key supporter of the Sinn Féin peace process". His repetition of that sentiment when the three-judge Special Criminal Court declared Murphy guilty last December, along with an assertion that Murphy had been treated unfairly, caused Micheál Martin to conclude Sinn Féin was only concerned with protecting its own and was "unfit for government".
That charge and Sinn Féin’s commitment to abolish the Special Criminal Court became features of the election campaign.
Indeed, who could have predicted, at the time of the 2006 raid, that Murphy’s sentencing would coincide a decade later with voting in a general election?
The decision to transfer the case to the Special Criminal Court in Dublin from a jury trial in Dundalk was taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions to prevent intimidation and to preserve public peace and order.
Murphy appealed that decision all the way to the Supreme Court. He lost. Just as he lost a case for libel in 1990 when he was identified as an IRA commander. On that occasion a jury found him to be a prominent member of the Provisional IRA who planned murder and the bombing of property.
The Northern Ireland Executive nearly collapsed last year because of the continuation of Provisional IRA structures. An official report found that while these underpinned the peace process, individual PIRA members were still engaging in large scale smuggling.
Such criminality cannot be tolerated. Sinn Féin must break fully from its “armalite and ballot box” past if it wishes to participate in government.