The Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, has described as opportunistic the criticism surrounding the publication of a photograph in the republican weekly An Phoblacht of four Sinn Féin TDs posing in Castlerea Prison with the killers of Garda Jerry McCabe.
Mr Adams said that publicity about the issue was causing further distress for the McCabe family but those who were complaining about the photograph were operating to an anti-Sinn Féin agenda.
He said he had great compassion for the McCabe family but that those serving time in prison for the garda's murder in Limerick in 1996 should be released under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
"There is a campaign for the release of those prisoners, and clearly under the terms of the Good Friday agreement they should be released. There is a campaign against the release of those prisoners. Every issue will be seized upon, and I think it is very, very distressing for the McCabe family.
"It is certainly not an issue that we want to be dragged into every second or third week," said Mr Adams
The Prison Service is investigating the circumstances under which the four TDs, Mr Caoimghín Ó Caoláin, Mr Sean Crowe, Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Mr Martin Ferris are pictured in Castlerea Prison beside Kevin Walsh, who shot dead Det Garda McCabe as he was protecting a cash delivery in Limerick. Also in the picture are fellow IRA men convicted of the killing, Pearse McAuley, Jeremiah Sheehy and Michael O'Neill.
The detective's widow, Mrs Anne McCabe, yesterday deplored the publication of the photograph, but said she was confident the IRA men would serve their time in prison.
"I thought it was unusual to see that Dáil deputies would be allowed in to stand beside the convicted killers of my husband. I thought it was against the rules of the jail," she told BBC Radio Ulster.
"I have it on full authority that they will do their time. We've had assurances from past and present governments," she added.
