The row between the Government and Sinn Féin intensified today with Gerry Adams accusing the Taoiseach of attacking Sinn Féin in order to divert attention from the jailing of Ray Burke.
Burke, who is a former Fianna Fáil minister, began a six-month prison sentence earlier this week for tax offences.
Speaking in London on the eve of his meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Sinn Féin President said Bertie Ahern had 'cleverly defused the Ray Burke affair by opening up a full frontal attack on Sinn Féin'.
Mr Adams said that attack was driven by political considerations because the Government had decided that little progress could be made in the Northern Ireland peace process in the next few months.
Referring to yesterday's heated exchanges in the Dáil between Mr Ahern and Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Mr Adams said, 'We want to do business with the Taoiseach, but he can't expect to attack us in the way that he does and for us not to robustly defend ourselves.
Adams criticises McDowell
Mr Adams said the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, was seen by the public as being no help to the peace process.
He added that the Progressive Democrats' agenda was never for a peace process and that the PDs had never made a contribution to the process.
Mr McDowell was also accused of grossly misrepresenting the outcome of Sinn Féin's meeting with the Government in Dublin earlier this week.
The Sinn Féin leader said it was a gross misrepresentation for Mr McDowell to have asserted that Sinn Féin had agreed at that meeting to go off and reflect on how it would deal with the issue of criminality. 'We did no such thing,' said Mr Adams.
Mr Adams also said that the peace process was in the grip of a very deep sense of crisis.
He added that while he believes the problems in the process predate last month's Northern Bank raid, he accepted that the robbery had compounded the difficulties.
He claimed that the £26.5 million Belfast raid, which the North's Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, has blamed on the IRA, had been seized by anti-republican elements for their own purposes.
