This column comes with a health warning. I am not neutral when it comes to Sinn Féin. That makes me a bigot, in their eyes. Sticks and stones, yawn, yawn.
Is it exactly bigoted to point out that in the space of 5 pages of their manifesto I counted 68 pledges which involve increased public spending? Is it blind prejudice to ask how this bonanza is going to be funded? Is it somehow racist to question whether all of these promises – some costing billions such as the renationalisation of utilities – can be funded by closing a few remaining tax loopholes? All of them.
I think not – and nor do most right-thinking people. No wonder Fianna Fail and Fine Gael used words like 'extraordinary', 'crazy' and 'delusional' to describe this weird document. All those millions from New York dinners and bank heists obviously didn't go on policy development.
But hasn't the promise to increase income tax has been ditched? And the plan to increase corporation tax has fallen off the page. So Sinn Féin is now a responsible political party that could and should be in government, right?
Not so fast. Being responsible means cutting your cloth to suit your purse. The tax hikes might not be mentioned but where are the spending cuts which necessarily follow? That's right – there are none. Can the increased spending pledges be met from the existing tax take? Not in a million years. It's one thing blasting the British taxpayers' subsidy but you would hope Sinn Féin would be more careful with Irish people's hard-earned cash.
Gerry Adams says that "the establishment parties" – previously "the Leinster House parties" – are the dishonest ones because they are going into this election promising both reduced taxation and public service improvements. This is economics for infants.
Economic growth means more tax revenue allowing for either more public spending or tax cuts or a bit of both. Furthermore, tax cuts have the effect of stimulating even more economic growth so they, to an extent, pay for themselves and for more public spending. This has to be done judiciously or the economy 'overheats' with unpleasant side-effects like inflation. Here endeth the economics lesson.
But perhaps I am missing the point. Perhaps I am giving Sinn Féin too much credence by even subjecting their economic proposals to scrutiny. Gerry Adams' foreword to his manifesto lists a 10-point plan. Priority Number 1 is, surprise, surprise, a United Ireland. Priority number 2 is about Partition. A strong economy comes in not 3rd, not 4th but – you guessed it – 10th.
According to Sinn Féin, the economic prosperity Ireland now enjoys is down to "the hard work of all our people". It's a charming idea – except it presupposes that everyone in Ireland was a work-shy layabout until 15 years ago. Policies had nothing to do with it, apparently.
But let's leave the economy to one side for a moment, if that is possible. Let's judge Sinn Féin by its own lights. "All political parties claim to support peace and unity – Sinn Féin delivers," we are told, and "the IRA has taken a historic unilateral initiative that has opened unprecedented democratic opportunities". (Apologies but their manifesto really is that badly written).
I can't put it any better than Garret FitzGerald: stopping a war that you should never have been started doesn't make you a peace party. What's more, continuing with a war that you knew was achieving the opposite of its intended aims is just plain sick.
But, for the sake of argument, let's also leave aside whether the desire for Unity is stronger or weaker since nearly 4,000 people lost their lives, mainly at the hands of the IRA.
Yes, Sinn Féin makes passing mention of unionists in its plans – a small step forward. But is a party that demands inquiries into abuses by anyone and everyone except the IRA, which goes beyond (and therefore undermines) the Good Friday Agreement, which talks about human rights but has a long history of excusing mass murder, and which (still) has nothing good to say about the Gardai in its manifesto really a party likely to inspire confidence among sections of this island's population?
Sinn Féin has a glib response to this: if them being in government is good enough for Ian Paisley, it should be more than good enough for everyone else. After all, didn't unionism take the brunt over the years, without for a moment overlooking the Jerry McCabes, the Billy Foxs and all the rest?
But that is to pretend that Dublin and Belfast are just two sides of the same coin when there is, in fact, a world of difference.
The Northern Ireland Executive levies no taxes. It doesn't determine its own spending. It has no role whatever in foreign affairs or defence. It still has no responsibility for policing and the administration of justice. And there are a whole range of issues it is expressly prohibited from legislating on.
There might be fancy titles and long limousines and a very grand setting but the Northern administration bears closer relation to a county council with attitude than a national parliament. As the Good Friday Agreement states, "Northern Ireland in its entirety remains part of the United Kingdom… [Westminster's] power to make legislation for Northern Ireland would remain unaffected". End of story.
Northern Ireland is – and has long been – a society bitterly divided on political, religious, cultural and ethnic lines that has for most of our lifetimes been afflicted by terrorist violence emerging from a conflict of nationality. Some unionists might not like it, but that makes Northern Ireland a special case.
Whether or not one believes any of that violence has been justified is not the point: every section of society there has suffered as a result. The Good Friday Agreement, the core of which is self-determination with compulsory power-sharing, was designed to ease the differences merging from the rival sectarianisms of the two main communities.
As Sinn Féin are – again, whether one likes it or not – the principal representatives of the Northern nationalist population, it is desirable that they be in the 'government' of Northern Ireland so long as they meet some very basic requirements. Without them, there can be no devolved institutions and, in the long term, no institutions means no Agreement means no sorting things out exclusively peacefully and democratically down the line.
It is precisely because many people reject the Sinn Féin philosophy, policies and history that there is a divided society in Northern Ireland in the first place and why shared institutions are so necessary there.
But none of these arguments applies in the fully independent and sovereign Republic. There is no crying 'need' for Sinn Féin to be anywhere near the government when no conflict exists about the legitimacy of the state.
So, given there's a choice here, what possible advantage is there from having a coalition which has at its throat one wing of an organisation still describing itself as the one true government of Ireland? And how is Irish unity advanced by wrecking the economy – the thing that unionists most admire about this State?
There are lots of old sayings about elections. My favourite? If in doubt, leave them out.
