Prof Mary McAleese now has a serious problem in her bid for the Presidency. It demands nothing less than the frankest explanation of her views on Northern Ireland policy, the SDLP, Sinn Fein and the peace process for confidence in her ability to be a truly representative head of state to be restored. The problem has been created for her not only by the circumstances surrounding Mr Gerry Adams's endorsement of her candidacy but by any objective assessment of the opinions offered by her, and about her, in the three information-gathering reports for the Department of Foreign Affairs in January, April and May of this year.
The confidential memoranda were prepared by an official, Ms Dympna Hayes, for Mr Sean O hUiginn, then head of the Anglo-Irish section of the Department. Whether it was right - or, indeed, in the national interest - that such conversations should be made public in the first place is now a moot point, given that the accounts were sprawled across the front and inside pages of two Sunday newspapers yesterday.
The contents of the memoranda, however, do raise serious questions for Ms McAleese 10 days before polling.
The first, and most serious, one is whether Ms McAleese was perpetrating a political sleight-of-hand by presenting herself as the presidential candidate who will, according to her campaign logo, be "building bridges". This presentation would appear to be completely undermined by the contents of the documents.
According to a report from Ms Hayes to the Department on April 8th this year, Ms Brid Rodgers, a leading member of the SDLP and a Taoiseach's nominee to the Seanad in the 1980s, suggested that Ms McAleese was "pushing the Sinn Fein agenda".
The report continues that, referring to the coverage of the SDLP in the Irish News, Ms Rodgers said the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Mr Jim Fitzpatrick, Father Alex Reid and Ms McAleese had recently formed an unofficial alliance.
She is said to have described the main object of the "triumvirate" as "promoting a new nationalist consensus which owes more to Sinn Fein than the SDLP, and that: "All three are in regular touch with the Sinn Fein leadership and are in reality pushing the Sinn Fein agenda."
Ms Rodger's reported views would suggest that Ms McAleese would have some difficulty building bridges with elements of the SDLP, never mind her claim to be able to build bridges across the unionist spectrum.
In mitigation of the leak of the first Foreign Affairs memorandum in the Sunday Business Post, Ms McAleese outlined how she was part of the Redemptorist peace mission, headed by Father Reid. It appears that Fianna Fail nominated her to participate in this initiative.
Is it not very strange, however, that a candidate who places such emphasis on her track record did not boast of her work in the peace process until she was confronted with the consequences of the leak of the first memo on Questions and Answers last Monday night?
Ms Hayes reported, according to the document dated January 31st, 1997, that: "Now for the first time many middle-class voters, especially first generation middle-class nationalists like herself [McAleese], will be able to countenance voting for Sinn Fein as continuing to support John Hume while at the same time landing a more direct swipe at the British Government."
Two of the reports, in January and May, concern the nature of the relationship between Ms McAleese and the president of Sinn Fein, Mr Gerry Adams. Ms Hayes writes, on January 31st, that Ms McAleese is in regular contact with both the SDLP leader, Mr Hume, and Mr Adams.
"She has recently tried to convince Mr Adams that his interpretation of Hume's Sunday Independent article is too narrow, particularly regarding the reference to Sinn Fein's policy of abstention." ein's performance in the general election and confident that they will perform even better in the local elections". She reports, in the same memo, that Ms McAleese "has not had much contact with Mr Adams since the election although she returned from London last Monday evening on the same flight as Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness. Yet, when asked on Friday's Late Late Show why she did not ask Mr Adams not to make his intervention in the presidential election, Ms McAleese replied: "I am not on speaking terms with him to that extent."
The contents of the memoranda, coupled with Mr Adams's endorsement of her candidacy last week, serve to challenge Ms McAleese's extravagant claim that she could be a President "building bridges" across the divided in Northern Ireland. They also serve to present her as less impartial on the national question than she has publicly presented herself to be.
If the Department of Foreign Affairs assessments are credible, the Mary McAleese revealed by them is, as former Progressive Democrats TD, Mr Michael McDowell, has said, a "very dark shade of green". There is nothing wrong with that.
There would be no peace process if people did not speak to Sinn Fein. There is even a certain legitimacy in hoping that the Sinn Fein vote would increase, if only to give the doves sway over the IRA hawks.
What has gone wrong for Mary McAleese is that it would appear that she is concealing her real political self from the voters in the presidential election.