It has been, what, the best part of three weeks since voters went to the polls in the South and now, finally, The Irish Times, Ireland’s newspaper of record, this morning tells its readers what it should have told them back when the posters were being hoisted on to lampposts, long before voters went to the polls: that the Provisional IRA still exists, is armed, is involved in criminality and that it controls Sinn Fein’s policies and direction, truths that the dogs in the street in Belfast, Tyrone, south Armagh and working class areas of Dublin could have told them, had the paper’s editorial leadership summoned up the courage to do what newspapers are supposed to do, tell its reporters to go out there and dig out the truth.
For what it is worth, weeks after it should have been written, here is a link to the IT’s piece. As I have said before, this used to be a newspaper.
(Having failed to tell its readers the truth about the IRA-Sinn Fein nexus for three weeks, The Irish Times compounds the offence by hiding this article behind a paywall, using software that makes it impossible to copy and paste the contents. It is almost as if they are ashamed to be caught out telling the truth!)
The Broken Elbow 
Hello, I am not being sarcastic or a wise ass when I ask: Is this such a bad thing ?
I think you miss the point: this article could have been written when it really mattered, before the vote, but wasn’t. It was journalistic malfeasance of the worst sort.
The Irish Times has been assiduously normalising SF for a long time. Here’s something I wrote two years ago: https://colummccaffery.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/journalism-and-the-struggle-to-decide-what-is-normal-the-case-of-sfs-desire-to-celebrate-the-prov-ira/
It is also a case of needing to ‘follow the money’, the huge fortune amassed by the IRA via robbery (e.g. Northern Bank) and rackets, smuggling etc. Who owns tghis money? Who has access to this money? What is done with this money? And so on.