BELFAST

RECENT REVELATIONS THAT Sinn Fein now owns multiple properties across Ireland and has a bank balance in the millions, has caused observers to wonder whether it is now a private equity fund rather than a political party.

“The politics is frozen and the property portfolio and the money demonstrate a fine head for business. Perhaps, with the slow demographic flow in its direction, the aim is to continue to buy more and more property, particularly in Northern Ireland, to the extent that it will own most of the six counties prior to any referendum on Irish unity,” says commentator Eugen Carthage of The Capitalism Project. “Like the Zionists set out to purchase as much of Palestine as they could before being given and taking so much of the rest of that territory. If Sinn Fein is the landlord of most of Northern Ireland then maybe any vote will tip towards unity.”