TÁNAISTE SIMON HARRIS got into a heated exchange with Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty during Leaders’ Questions today, as Doherty accused the government of “disrespecting and vandalising” Irish history.

Doherty had asked why they’d chosen to open shops and offices in complex of the GPO on O’Connell Street, arguing that it was an inappropriate use of the historic building.

“The GPO is the most iconic site of our country’s fight for freedom. It’s the place where the Republic was declared. It’s where it was bravely defended during the Easter Rising, and it’s disgraceful stuff coming from your government,” he told Harris.

Doherty also criticised the government’s decision to call the new children’s hospital ‘National Children’s Hospital Ireland’, rather than name it after Kathleen Lynn, a doctor and activist who was involved in the Easter Rising of 1916.

Doherty asked: “Are you joking?”

“In no other country that fought for its freedom would you have a government so blatantly disrespecting and vandalising its hallowed ground and history.

“And sure, we all remember your party, your government, wanted us to commemorate the black and tans just five years ago.”

Doherty asked what Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have “got against” the people who fought in the Rising.

In response, Harris accused him of “revisionism” and said Sinn Féin has worked to “undermine” the Republic.

“Don’t you dare present yourself as a defender of the Republic. There’s gardaí dead in this country as a result of the actions of your party’s army wing,” he said.

A number of gardaí were killed by various factions of the IRA. Victims include Detective Garda Jerry McCabe, who was killed in Limerick in 1996 during an attempted post office robbery. 

The IRA initially denied involvement, but then claimed that the operation was “not authorised by the Army Council, but authorised at a lower level by an authorised person”. Sinn Féin later lobbied for an early release for those convicted.

After serving their prison sentences two of the killers, Pearse McAuley and Kevin Walsh, were collected from Castlerea Prison in 2009 by former Sinn Fein TD Martin Ferris, something Harris alluded to today in the Dáil. 

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has condemned the IRA men who murdered McCabe.

Garda Gary Sheehan was also killed by the IRA during a hostage rescue operation in Leitrim in 1983.

Along with Private Patrick Kelly, Sheehan were killed in Derrada Wood, Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, during an operation to rescue Quinnsworth supermarket executive Don Tidey, who had been kidnapped for 23 days in Dublin.