The party's economic proposals would hinder reunification, writes Marc Coleman, Economics Editor
'Government should have a central role in managing the economy.' With these words, the Sinn Féin manifesto opens its pitch to the electorate, a pitch based on opposition to privatisation of public services - the creation, indeed, of new semi-state companies - raising corporation taxes and, of course, ending the economic inefficiencies of partition.
When he spoke to delegates at the RDS on Saturday, Gerry Adams was appealing to voters on both sides of an economic wall, a wall created by partition. On one side the rate of corporation tax is 12.5 per cent. On the other, Northern Ireland, it is 30 per cent. But before you check Sinn Féin policy on this question - achieving a single rate of corporation tax of 17.5 per cent on the whole island - you need to check on which side of the Border you stand.
In the Republic, the proposal is well to the left of either Labour or the Green Party, neither of which proposes raising corporation tax. From a UK point of view, Sinn Féin is standing slightly to the right of the Conservative Party and the Confederation of British Industry in wanting the North's rate for this tax slashed. That's Irish politics for you.
The policy is part of Sinn Féin's drive to achieve the objective of reunification. And unionists would agree with common labour standards across the Border, enhanced cross-Border transport infrastructure and a rate of corporation tax closer to the Republic's low rate.
An all-island rail network, telecommunications system and road system are just some of the practical policies Sinn Féin proposes to bring the 32 counties closer together. With trains that run on time and 100 per cent broadband penetration in the North, the idea looks like a good deal for the South.
Some of this is already happening. At the end of the week, Irish officials from the Departments of Finance, Foreign Affairs and the Taoiseach's Department will meet to discuss the South's contribution to financial support for the North.
Under the National Development Plan (NDP), the new Northern executive - if successfully established - will be able to seek funding from the South for building cross-Border road and rail links.
Sinn Féin is careful to recognise the crucial role of small businesses in creating employment, especially in rural isolated areas. According to the Small Business Forum, some 250,000 small businesses in the Republic support almost 800,000 jobs.
Sinn Féin is not short of proposals to support the sector. Whether the sector will welcome the type of support the party proposes is another matter. In a novel idea Sinn Féin proposes the establishment of a "co-ordinated and comprehensive social economy strategy" on an all-Ireland and state-funded basis.
Under it, a social economy development agency, state-funded of course, would develop, guide and advise small community-owned enterprise units or small businesses trying to achieve altruistic objectives.
And in a reference that would warm the heart of any old-style socialist, Sinn Féin calls for the "further development of the Irish worker co-operatives" to make the co-operative sector a cornerstone of Irish economic and enterprise policy.
But the policies that small business have actually called for - curbing local authority expenditure and achieving more competition in the public sector - seem far from Sinn Féin's agenda. The party's defence of the state's role in government brings us to the core problem of the North's economy and, perhaps, the irony of ironies regarding Sinn Féin's entire economic strategy. Whereas the Southern economy is 70 per cent private sector and 30 per cent public sector, the economy of the North is the exact opposite.
A vast public sector, together with a generous disability benefit regime, are the two things that keep the North's unemployment rate from rising to crisis levels. Underpinning that vast public sector and benefit regime is an almost complete financial dependency on London, something that ought to be anathema to Sinn Féin. If Ireland were to be reunited, the North's public sector would have to shrink significantly to avoid it becoming a crippling burden.
As well as developing indigenous industry, reducing that dependency would also require a policy of aggressively attracting foreign direct investment from multinationals, at least at the initial stages. Not just small, but also medium-sized and large indigenous enterprises would need encouragement.
It would also require a rationalisation of the North's public services. Sinn Féin's policy is to "defend public services", not to mention expanding the apparatus of the state by the creation of new state and semi-state bodies.
The willingness of UK taxpayers to fund statist largesse in the North is waning. A majority in the South probably still supports reunification. And, as even some unionists can accept, a closer economic integration of the 32 counties - aside from the issue of political unification - could on its own be to everybody's benefit. But would Sinn Féin's statist policies help or hinder those benefits?
At the very least, they sit oddly with the spirit of independence and self-reliance that Sinn Féin's own name ("Ourselves Alone") evokes.