THE sisters and the fiancée of a Catholic man said to have been murdered by the IRA will be fêted by President Bush in the White House on St Patrick’s Day as part of a strategy calculated by Washington to isolate Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader.

Paula McCartney and her four sisters, as well as Bridgeen Hagans, who was to marry Robert McCartney this summer, will fly to Washington on March 15 to highlight their campaign to bring his killers to justice.

While there was no confirmation last night, it is understood that an invitation from the White House has been accepted and will be announced later this week.

The invitation is a powerful political message from Mr Bush, whose aides announced last week that for the first time since 1995, Sinn Fein and the other Irish parties will not be invited to the White House for St Patrick’s Day, the most important day in the Irish-American calendar.

Mr Adams and Martin McGuinness, named by the Irish Government as members of the Provisional IRA’s ruling army council, will be in the United States for the occasion, but officials in the Bush Administration have told The Times that Mr Bush no longer believes that either man can be trusted.

The change comes as Sinn Fein is mired in scandal over the largest bank robbery in the UK, which has been attributed to the IRA by the British and Irish Governments as well as by the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Garda Siochana. Mr McCartney’s killing in a Belfast pub brawl on January 30 has provoked widespread condemnation. The White House has also been angered by the IRA’s refusal to allow photographic evidence of disarmament moves.

Speaking to The Times last night, Paula McCartney said: “We’re absolutely delighted. We do believe there’s a very strong possibility we will be there and we welcome it. We are going to use it to the best of our advantage.

“Our message will be to highlight the murder of our brother, Robert.” Asked what they will say to Mr Bush if they meet him, she said: “We will be asking him to support us in our campaign for justice for Robert and for Ireland.”

A Bush Administration official confirmed that the White House was eager to host the McCartney sisters on St Patrick's Day.

The President is said to be exasperated by events in Northern Ireland. One aide, speaking to The Times, even talked about Mr Adams in the terms of disdain that the White House held for Yassir Arafat, the late head of the Palestinian Authority. “Just as the President labelled Arafat not a partner for peace, the same now goes for Adams. The President does not want to meet with him.”

During Sinn Fein's annual conference in Dublin at the weekend, Mr Adams acknowledged that he knew several of the seven Sinn Fein members suspended from the party in connection with the murder.

In an attempt to distance Sinn Fein from the murder and to defuse the condemnation following it, Mr Adams invited the McCartney sisters to the party conference, where he denounced the killers. “They should admit what they did in a court of law,” Mr Adams said.

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