Sinn Fein isolated as ministers strip it of £600,000 allowances

Sinn Fein stands to lose more than £600,000 of official allowances under sanctions which the Government will ask the Commons to level against the party in the wake of the £26m Belfast bank robbery.

Sinn Fein stands to lose more than £600,000 of official allowances under sanctions which the Government will ask the Commons to level against the party in the wake of the £26m Belfast bank robbery.

The Commons heard a hail of criticism yesterday of Sinn Fein and the IRA, with the IRA being universally blamed for the bank robbery. Many MPs called for the exclusion of Sinn Fein from the peace process to punish republicans for trying to combine criminality and politics, but the Government sought to keep open its long-term options. Paul Murphy, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said he would seek a debate on fresh sanctions soon.

The expectations are that this would result in Sinn Fein losing Westminster allowances which last year were £489,000 for the party's four MPs, Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, Pat Doherty and Michelle Gildernew. The first two were named at the weekend as members of the IRA army council by the Irish Justice Minister, Michael McDowell.

Mr Murphy said he was extending for a further year the withholding of Sinn Fein's allowances from the Northern Ireland Assembly, a total of £120,000. This had been imposed for a previous republican kidnap attempt in Belfast.

Some, including the Irish government, had argued that imposing sanctions on Sinn Fein would allow republicans to pose as victims and ease the intense pressure from which they are suffering. But these arguments faded as anti-republican sentiment sharply increased with the seizure of more than £2m in the Irish Republic, with a political and public backlash against Sinn Fein.

The £600,000 represents only a fraction of the cash taken in the robbery, but it was deemed a substantial sum and a necessary move to express national disapproval of republican activities. The party now finds no sympathy among parties in London and Dublin, and is in deeper isolation than it has experienced for a decade or more. MPs yesterday called for greater penalties on republicans.

Mr Murphy said he would take into account any representations from the party before his final decision next week. But since the Government simply disbelieves the Sinn Fein claim that the IRA did not rob the bank the proposed sanctions are likely to come into effect.

Alex Maskey, a Sinn Fein Assembly member, said: "Paul Murphy has no right to discriminate against democratically elected Irish politicians. Paul Murphy does not have one vote in Ireland. These actions are a distortion of democracy. We will continue to fight this discrimination politically, legally and through an ongoing campaign of democratic resistance."

The Rev Ian Paisley, the Democratic Unionist Party leader who only a few months ago stood on the brink of a power-sharing deal with Sinn Fein, told the Commons: "The time has come for this Government and this House to set its own affairs in order and say there is no place in a democracy for armed terrorists and for their campaign of crime and their campaign against the decent citizens of Northern Ireland." David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist party leader called for more stringent sanctions, telling Mr Murphy: "Your failure to act in this matter reinforces the suspicion that all the Government wants to do is allow a little time to pass by and then try to reheat the DUP/Sinn Fein deal of last December. That will not work."

David Lidington, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary backed the imposition of sanctions, saying: "The reality today is that the kind of inclusive power-sharing devolution envisaged in the Belfast Agreement is no longer, sadly, practical politics."