Patrick Smith (politician) career, Smith being said to have shouted across the floor at Dáil Éireann, "They gave us stepping-stones, but they [state forces in 1922] would not walk on them." A play on the same quote by Irish revolutionary, Michael Collins. He entered the Dáil in September 1923, as a Republican candidate. In 1926, Éamon de Valera, the Leader of Anti-Treaty Sinn Fein, approached Smith and persuaded him to join his newly founded political party, Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fail abandoned the abstentionist policy of Anti Treaty Sinn Fein and its elected members took their seats in Dáil Éireann. De Valera and Smith
Alex Fein Fein, together with Bracha Rafael established an interfaith publication called, The Colony. It formed a launchpad for Fein's activism against Islamophobia. Fein founded Macroscope, a communications and product development company specialising in biomedical research counter-disinformation. Following The University of Wollongong's conferring a PhD on Judy Wilyman for a thesis propagating anti-vaccination misinformation, Fein's company embarked on a campaign to have the degree revoked. Fein has strongly condemned what she perceives as a corrupted organisational and philanthropic culture in Jewish Australia. Her own philanthropic activity has been unconventional, and her opposition to establishment practices has been criticised as simplistic and naive.