Ann Travers is a friend. She lives with the grief of her murdered sister Mary every day. There is no closure, no relief. The woman convicted of her part in that murder, Mary McArdle (who I also knew), has been begged for years to meet with @AnnTravers6 the Travers family or legacy bodies to give them details about that day. Ann wants peace and it isn't obtainable, because Mary won't provide it. Mary McArdle is entitled to get on with life, but Catherine Connolly has a responsibility to society - and to victims - not to use her office to traumstise people. Due diligence? Her visit to the Falls Women's Centre was ill-judged. The photo of her beaming with Mary McArdle was stupid and causes great hurt. On a separate note, Catherine Connolly and her team have been contacted by various media outlets since yesterday. They have ignored the contact. The Áras is part of a democracy, not a Trumpian dictatorship. It is utter contempt for the notion of a democratic Republic to not respond to press queries. Sort this mess out @PresidentIRL .

Sinn Fein is criticising Edwin Poots and Ian Paisley Jnr for not bringing information to the DUP on a disclosure of inappropriate behaviour towards an adult by Donaldson. This is the same Sinn Féin who Gerry Adams withheld information from that his brother confessed to sexually abusing a four year old child. Liam Adams subsequently went on to work with children after Gerry Adams knew, and then held officer positions in Sinn Féin. And so when Sinn Féin trot out their faux concerns to media, it is a perfectly legitimate question to ask them what they are going to do about their member Gerry Adams putting children at risk. How on earth could they possibly assure the public that they're safeguarding children if he is still a member?

The hypocrisy is staggering. Jeffrey Donaldson's abuse of children is sickening - as sickening as Marty Morris' or Seamus Marley's, or Liam Adams, or any of the other republicans who abused children. I don't see any evidence that that Donaldson's abuse of children has been covered up within the DUP. If it emerges I'll be the first to criticise them. However. I've seen plenty of cast iron evidence that child abuse was covered up repeatedly over decades on cases running into double figures, by Sinn Féin. Some of it is in the public domain. Lots of it isn't. Yet. The very last people who should be looking elsewhere, are republicans. They should instead demand that their own party expel anyone who had any involvement in covering up any of those cases.