Sinn Féin members put their "lives on the line" against criminality, party leader Gerry Adams has told the Dáil.

Stressing that Sinn Féin “is totally and absolutely opposed to criminality of all kinds”, he said the party had paid a price for standing with the community and police services against criminality.

“My home has been regularly targeted with bomb alerts. I and other Sinn Féin representatives are under active death threats. That’s a matter of fact,” he said.

“We’ve had property attacks. We have had one young man lose an eye, Frank McCabe Jnr, because of our party’s and his family’s stand against criminality.”

“This isn’t an academic exercise for us,” he told Taoiseach Enda Kenny. “And this isn’t an electorally driven point scoring.

“We put our lives on the line against those who are engaging in the name of republicanism and others, who are engaging in criminality.”

The Taoiseach accepted that Mr Adams was the target of intimidation and attempted assault. “I have condemned that unreservedly,” he said.

Mr Kenny said he had an open mind on the issue of a “revamped or different joint agency resourced by both governments to deal with criminality in all its forms” and if it was agreed during the current Northern talks, he would not oppose it.

The Taoiseach added he was glad Mr Adams supported the Criminal Assets Bureau. He said Sinn Féin had been under some scrutiny in respect of claims of illegality and illegal activity and "in respect of safe houses, sexual abuse and property-based programmes indicating access to extraordinary levels of finance".

The talks process in Stormont was the forum to deal with these issues, he said.

Referring to the British government and Garda reports on paramilitarism, Mr Kenny said the party had to address the findings “that an army council now controls the Sinn Féin party”.

He added he had never believed Mr Adams when he said he was never a member of the IRA.

Mr Kenny said the army council “is deemed to be overseeing both Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin, based on reports from Provisional IRA members”.

He said Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil were not subject to direction from any army council.

But the Sinn Féin leader said that like all parties, Sinn Féin was accountable to the electorate. “Our leadership is the ard comhairle and is elected democratically annually at our ard fheis and we’re not accountable to any other group or organisation.”

Earlier Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin highlighted the case of the Northern Bank robbery which had involved Sinn Féin members, “We cannot turn a blind eye to this,” he said.

Describing the issue as a “twilight zone”, Mr Martin asked if people were absolutely certain funding from organised crime “by alleged individual republicans “is not finding its way into the political party”.

Mr Kenny agreed and reiterated the statistics that the Criminal Assets Bureau had brought 99 individuals before the Special Criminal Court.

Mr Kenny, who spoke to British prime minister David Cameron on Tuesday said it was a positive sign that the DUP had gone back into the Northern Ireland executive and the talks.