The biggest political storm to hit the institutions since February’s restoration looks to be blowing over. There are still holes in the narrative but Michelle O’Neill facing questions in the Assembly about the safeguarding failings around the Michael McMonagle case appears to have drawn the heat out of the matter.
The questions from MLAs gave a distinct sense that the Sinn Féin deputy leader wasn’t so much being hunted by a pack of hungry wolves as trailed by a herd of curious sheep, underscoring the impression that there’s a reluctance to plunge the knife too deep for fear the whole Stormont edifice will collapse again.
Any questioning the first minister might face in future at the Executive Office committee would need to be more pointed and forensic, with less grandstanding, otherwise it’ll be a waste of time.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin in Dublin has belatedly taken the initiative and ordered a “complete overhaul” of the party’s governance procedures.
Its rivals will continue to use the issue as a pre-election stick to beat the party with but without fresh substantive revelations in the media, the legs of the story appear to be tiring.
We are still expected to believe that the then first minister-designate, along with other Sinn Féin representatives present, failed to spot her former employee and suspected sex offender who’d been suspended by the party nine months previously, in Stormont’s Great Hall in February last year, as he stood a matter yards away filming the proceedings in his new role with the British Heart Foundation.
Even the first minister herself conceded that it’s a difficult one for people to swallow, telling the assembly “from that angle... it looks perhaps that I should have seen him”. Her special adviser John Loughran, thought to be among a number of senior party representatives present that day, also missed the man Ms O’Neill would later describe as a “monster”, even though the former press officer chatted with members of the assembled media about his new role.
There remain outstanding questions around McMonagle’s employment status while working at Stormont and around the role played by the party’s former human resources manager, who we are to assume is working elsewhere having failed to notify anyone in authority about contact from the British Heart Foundation regarding the references provided by press officers Seán Mag Uidhir and Caolán McGinley.
That pair resigned their posts and their party membership last month in the midst of an internal investigation, seemingly taking with them not only key information about their conduct in regards to McMonagle but also the lion’s share of the blame for drawing Sinn Féin into yet another messy safeguarding scandal.
The first minister and Economy Minister Conor Murphy have had to do a massive climbdown after attempting to deflect their party’s own shortcomings onto a charity, which as they have since acknowledged did everything by the book.
It’s been an embarrassment for Sinn Féin and an illustration that its tactic of doubling down rarely works in the long run.
The episode has also highlighted how some members of the public are willing to ignore serious failings for the sake of party loyalty. However, there’s many more who believe in the value of scrutiny, regardless of who’s involved, especially when it comes to safeguarding society’s most vulnerable.
