Prospective Sinn Fein candidates undergo a process of indoctrination and conditioning unlike that of any other party here, and most other Western democracies.

Once selected, inductees undergo an intensive six-week "learning and development" course before it is decided whether or not they are suitable to become what is termed an "activist" - either a local government candidate or one of its considerable army of backroom officials.

It is understood the party's "education" department rejects some four out of five election hopefuls. The selection process can be short-circuited where there are family connections. Mairia Cahill, given her staunch republican pedigree, would have hardly had to undergo any of the auditing process.

The party has a bank of professionals versed and constantly updated in the latest electoral marketing and communication skills, much of it garnered from members sent to study political techniques in the United States. Those who are chosen, receive training in communication skills with an emphasis on how to handle hostile questioning from journalists.

All parties preach the "on-message" philosophy but, unlike other parties, Sinn Fein people take it to a degree of extreme insularity verging on monomania.

Disenchanted former party and ex-IRA members have described a near fanatical insistence on conformism within the party that some term Stalinist.

The Party is, in fact, heading into the penultimate year of a 10-year programme to achieve power on both sides of the Border to coincide with the Easter Rising centenary.

Details of this programme were revealed in the Sunday Independent in April 2006 and the party's initial absolute support for Gerry Adams in the face of the Mairia Cahill affair showed that it is still utterly dedicated to the achievement of power and unquestioning support for its leader of 31 years.

Despite the very first rumblings of concern uttered by unidentified "senior figures" in the party on Thursday, Adams remains strong. In fact Mr Adams is only eight years shy of Robert "Uncle Bob" Mugabe of Zanu-PF's record as longest standing leader of a major political party

The internal Sinn Fein documents outlined what is Adams's essential vision of leading a "mass party and to mobilise even greater numbers of Irish people around our vision".

The party strategy is based on what it calls "alternative community-based structures".

The Sinn Fein policy paper makes it clear that its initial phase involving fomenting unrest with agitation and street politics.

"Radicalised and mobilised communities are the seed bed from which the new republic will be built," an internal diktat drawn up and outlined to a group of key party members at a meeting in the village of Gulladuff, Co Derry in March 2006 stated. Despite its public and repeated support for the PSNI the meeting heard that the police force in Northern Ireland would continue to be described as a "political police force" to be campaigned against.

And, despite his suggestion last week that the IRA had gone out of business so long that there could be no "corporate accountability" over the rape and cover-up in Mairia Cahill's case, the meeting of party officials heard regular and warm references to their "comrades" in the Provisional IRA, which was repeatedly referred to as "the Army" and "the Oglaigh".

The Party strategists outlined how the "national struggle" (also referred to as the "all-Ireland project") would be achieved in a "10-year trajectory".

This involves a "hearts and minds" campaign, the recruitment and indoctrination of young people into Sinn Fein. In this regard, it refers to the need for emphasis on "political education programmes".

It also outlined its sinister-sounding "counter strategy" against the party's perceived political opponents as well as the infiltration of "outside bodies" and the creation of a "network of facilitators". Sources said the "outside bodies" to be infiltrated include trade unions, media, education, community, arts and language organisations and the civil service, even the Garda, though none of this was detailed.

Despite its recent distancing of itself from the IRA the party strategy was entirely drawn up by former IRA figures, mostly ex-prisoners, who spent much of their time in the Maze and Portlaoise jails studying revolutionary tracts and working out how to adopt and implement what is primarily a Marxist revolutionary philosophy in Ireland.

A key phrase repeated in the Gulladuff document is "overall struggle".

The recruitment process is outlined as targeting people from "our existing support base; people who share our politics but might not previously have seen themselves as 'republicans'; to make the party representative of all sections of the community (women, ethnic minorities); to strengthen our skills base; to regenerate the party (attract more young members)."

The conference heard that Gerry Adams had hoped to launch its 10-year mass mobilisation in 2005 to coincide with IRA decommissioning, and the IRA's statement that it had "ceased all activities".

But but this had been postponed because of the adverse fall-out from the January 2005 murder of Robert McCartney by IRA and Sinn Fein members in Belfast, and the Northern Bank robbery the previous month. Outlining their plans for the seizure of power the Guladuff document said: "There will be no clap of revolutionary thunder or singular key moment or event to herald independence and the republic. Mass participation in republican politics will drive a process for change, which hollows partition and creates alternative community power structures.

"In practical terms, this means we become systematic in our approach to recruitment to Sinn Fein. We need to bring to life the concept of a mass party which serves to mobilise even greater number of Irish people around our vision."

Just as during the campaign by Robert McCartney's brave sisters in 2005, the "overall struggle" campaign was again becalmed last week as another young Belfast woman stepped forward to expose the darkness remaining at the heart of the Republican Movement's plan for power in Ireland.

Sunday Independent