There is a campaign under way to suggest that Sinn Féin is funded by the proceeds of IRA criminal activities. Most of the main Leinster House political parties have joined this campaign, writes Mark Brennock.
The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, asserted last month: "There is a close connection between Sinn Féin and the IRA, and I have no doubt that senior figures in the IRA are at the moment, and have been for many years, engaging in criminal activities to fund the activities of the republican organisation."
Note the use of the phrase "the republican organisation". We know who he means, eh?
Last weekend Enda Kenny called for an investigation of Sinn Féin finances by the Criminal Assets Bureau. He had "deep concern" about Sinn Féin's funding.
The reason? The Minister for Justice has insisted that the party is linked to organised crime, he said.
His colleague Gay Mitchell relied entirely on Mr McDowell's assertions on Tuesday's Prime Time to associate Sinn Féin with racketeering, "violence using hammers on people" and allowing drug-dealers to ply their trade in the North in return for payments "to the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin movement".
He admitted he had no evidence to back the assertion that Sinn Féin was funded by criminal activity.
Before criticising this as a smear campaign, however, it must be noted that it is not entirely unreasonable to believe it.
Throughout the IRA's campaign of murder, destruction, bank robbery, smuggling and racketeering, Sinn Féin's activists cheered it on at every ardfheis at a closed session addressed by an IRA representative.
Martin Ferris TD was caught red-handed trying to bring a large quantity of weapons and explosives ashore. Arthur Morgan TD did seven years for possession of weapons. Other Sinn Féin elected representatives were involved in this campaign: some were caught and some were not.
So it is unlikely that these people are now as morally offended as, say, Gay Mitchell at the idea that some of their present or former associates are involved in criminal activity. The police, North and South, say the IRA and/or its members remain active in criminality.
But this isn't the point. The political charge isn't just that some IRA activity continues, or that Sinn Féiners are more tolerant of law-breaking than the rest of us. It is that that Sinn Féin's political growth is part-funded by robberies and racketeering by the IRA or its individual members.
The most common claim from its political opponents is that Sinn Féin has an office at every second crossroads around the State, that they are mannned by an army of paid staff, and that the party must therefore be in receipt of massive sums of funny money to fund this network.
The party says it has, in fact, just 16 offices. In constituencies where some opponents have said it runs three, Sinn Féin says it runs just one.
The party published a list of its offices just before Christmas, and nobody has come forward to show it is incomplete (anyone got anything to add to Ballyfermot, Cabra, Carrickmacross, Cavan, Clonmel, Cork city, Drogheda, Dundalk, Finglas, Galway city, Monaghan, Navan, Sligo, Tallaght, Tralee and Waterford?).
Most of these are pretty basic premises in low-rent areas. The one in Finglas, for example, is in an extension to the home of the mother of Cllr Dessie Ellis (the latter did time on explosives charges).
Last month Sinn Féin published its audited accounts to try to counter the claims. These were only in respect of head office rather than local party organisations, but the party's director of finance, Des Mackin, rejected claims from other parties that Sinn Féin's local organisations appear to be inexplicably well funded, and that this could be where dodgy money was being injected into the party. He said the Revenue Commissioners could audit any unit of the party at any time.
As for the claims that it is the best-staffed party in the State, he said Sinn Féin has 16 employees paid by the party at just €500 per week each, and that, apart from constituency assistants to TDs paid for by the Oireachtas, it has no other staff. Fianna Fáil says it has 28 staff, Fine Gael 33, Labour 19 full-time and two part-time, and the PDs just five.
Sinn Féin's accounts show head office income of €789,975 in the Republic in 2002 (this excludes money raised by local sections of the organisation). While the party has substantial fundraising activity in the US and elsewhere, none of this comes to the Republic as foreign donations are now prohibited by law.
By contrast Fianna Fáil's head office income was €4.2 million in 2002, Fine Gael's was €3.8 million in 2002, Labour took in €2,024,864, and the PDs €1,026 million.
Those who believe in the peace process do so out of a belief that the Sinn Féin leadership is committed to a peaceful future and does not fund its party through criminality. Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD insisted this week that there was "no role" in Sinn Féin for anyone involved in criminal activities.
It is unsurprising that many will disbelieve Mr Ó Caoláin. But Sinn Féin's national accounts are audited, its local organisations are open to random inspection by the Revenue Commissioners, it is policed by the Standards in Public Offices Commission, and it has shown that opposition claims about its level of staffing and number of offices are greatly exaggerated.
Most significantly, nobody has produced a shred of evidence that Sinn Féin's version of its income and expenditure is inaccurate, or that the party is spending mysteriously obtained millions, or that it is funded by criminality.
It is their own fault that their history of support for IRA violence and criminality means that many people believe the charge nonetheless.
But if those who feel politically threatened by Sinn Féin want to accuse them of the most serious corruption of the democratic process, they should be required to produce some evidence.