Political reaction:Politicians from a number of political parties have condemned the Sunday Independent's story that suggested Liam Lawlor was with a prostitute when he died.
Several have called for the establishment of a press council to regulate the print media and the Green Party said they would seek a Dáil debate on the matter today.
Speaking to journalists in Dublin yesterday, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern questioned the decision to publish the inaccurate information about the crash involving Mr Lawlor and said the journalists could not have expected either diplomats or the Lawlor family to have addressed rumours on Saturday evening that transpired to be false.
"Listen, journalists have a job to do but I always think, if there's a race to the bottom, there's dangers in it," he said. "I think we've been going down that road for a long time so these things are going to happen."
"When I heard people saying today that the family hadn't come out and ambassadors hadn't answered them . . . you know I was talking to the family on Saturday night and I just think, to say things like that is just so untrue.
"The family were in no position to be thinking about diplomatic incidents or any of those issues on Saturday night. I was talking to Hazel Lawlor late that night from the ardfheis and the last thing on her mind was . . . worrying about what somebody was going to say."
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said the latest controversy showed a press council was badly needed. "To those who say a press council is not needed, I say that the defamation law is no use to the family of somebody who dies in these circumstances. I think the press council is the appropriate forum for such a complaint to be heard."
He said the proposed council would operate independently of both media owners and the Government.
"We're not trying to control the media, we're merely giving the media an opportunity collectively to establish mechanisms by which they will deal fairly with the public about whom they write."
Minister for Finance Brian Cowen said the apology offered by Independent Newspapers did not lessen the grief or upset of the Lawlor family.
Mr Cowen said the media industry and journalists in general would have to reflect very deeply and ensure that what happened at the weekend did not happen again.
Green TD Paul Gogarty, a former journalist, said the "inexcusable hurt and distress" caused to Mr Lawlor's family was "completely unacceptable".
"The deceased cannot sue for libel and therefore Mr Lawlor's family have no legal way to even attempt to right some of the undoubted wrong caused by the immensely offensive and untrue material written about Mr Lawlor yesterday."
Labour Senator Kathleen O'Meara also called for the setting up of a press council. "One of the most objectionable elements of the coverage of Liam Lawlor's death was that the dead can't sue for libel and Mr Lawlor's family have no formal mechanism for seeking redress for the publication of totally inaccurate and offensive material about him," she said.
"There is no question but that the Lawlor family has been wronged. The publication of sensational and lurid material about the circumstances of Liam Lawlor's death was clearly done without a fundamental checking out of the facts. There was a touch of 'never let the truth get in the way of a good story' about it."