Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has denied the violence in Libya is an embarrassment for the party in the wake of the republican movement's links in the past with Col Muammar Gadafy.
He compared the IRA's receipt of arms and explosives from the Libyan leader with Ireland's beef trade in the 1980s with Libya. Mr Adams said Ireland's beef trade with Col Gadafy was bigger than with any other Arab state at that time and the same applied for the US and Britain.
He said Col Gadafy "should go", insisted that Sinn Féin never had any connection with Libya and that it was not a huge issue in the election.
He said he had already condemned the violence and said the protests there showed that people wanted empowerment and it was a "reminder of how important it is for people to come out and vote".
The Sinn Féin leader and candidate for Louth was speaking at a final rally at the James Larkin statue on O'Connell street in Dublin.
Mr Adams called for people to "come out and make a stand and we're asking them to make a stand for Sinn Fein. We're very clear, we're very focused. We've come forward with very practical costed propositions."
"What we're all about in this party is standing up for citizens and citizenship and putting backbone into this political system. We need the strongest Sinn Féin team possible in the Dáil to put backbone into these other political parties."
Mr Adams said working people had "borne the brunt of very bad political choices by a very bad Government". He claimed the other political parties had the same agenda.
"They're for cuts and they're for this IMF/EU bailout. Some of them have moved towards the Sinn Féin position but we want to stop the madness which is about putting the State further into debt and burdening working people, increasing unemployment and increasing emigration."
Asked about the protests in Libya and Col Gadafy's links with the republican movement, Mr Adams said that what was happening across the Arab states "happened in the North. It happened in South Africa. It happened in the United States of America in the 60s."
People wanted empowerment and to participate in democratic systems, he said. "That's what's happening in the Arab states and that should be encouragement of us as Irish people to come out and use our votes and use them wisely."
Pressed about the IRA receiving arms and explosives from Col Gadafy during the Troubles, Mr Adams said "the largest beef trade with this State and the Arab countries was with Col Gadafy. And the arrangements made by the Americans and with the Brits was with Col Gadafy."
When it was put to him that guns and beef were very different, and asked about the Sinn Féin /IRA connection with the Libyan leader, he said "Sinn Féin /IRA is a term the DUP used to use as loyalists paramilitaries went out and killed Sinn Féin members".
He said "Sinn Féin has no links with Col Gadafy whatsoever" and never had links with Libya. "We support people throughout the world, their right to national self determination, democratic rights and we're against the type of action that's been taken in that country," he said.
