Sinn Féin accepted a $5,000 donation from Coca Cola four months before US unions began a legal battle against the company for alleged human-rights abuses in Colombia.
Mr Sean Crowe, a Sinn Féin TD, was unaware of the donation when he visited trade union officials in Bogota last December and heard allegations of serious human-rights abuses.
Sinn Féin's newspaper, An Phoblacht, has repeatedly condemned Coca Cola's human rights record. Last September it published a 1,300-word article detailing a human-rights campaign against Coca Cola in India.
The campaign began one month after Sinn Féin accepted $5,000 from the company.
The article also contained addresses for three websites calling for an international boycott against Coca Cola.
In another article last year, An Phoblacht documented Coca Cola's place in a report of the 10 worst corporations of 2001, for its alleged exploitation of children and abuse of human rights.
Last December, an international delegation monitoring the "Colombia Three" trial, including members of Sinn Féin and the Bring Them Home campaign, met trade union officials in Bogota and heard of alleged intimidation and murder in Coca Cola plants.
Independent TD Mr Finian McGrath, who took part in the trip, said that he was "very disappointed" that any political party would accept a donation from Coca Cola.
"I would urge people to think again and to rethink their position. Having met the Coca Cola workers in Colombia, I think we all have both a moral and political obligation to assist them in the best way possible."
Mr McGrath said he has made a submission to the ICTU and the Dublin Council of Trade Relations in relation to Coca Cola's human-rights record in Colombia.
Coca Cola vigorously denies allegations of human-rights abuses and says it has made strong efforts to ensue that companies involved in its manufacturing process are not involved in human-rights abuses.
Ms Lori Billingsley, a spokeswoman for Coca Cola's headquarters in Atlanta, said that the money given to a Friends of Sinn Féin fundraiser on St Patrick's Day in 2001 was not intended as a political donation.
"Coca Cola gave the money towards a St Patrick's Day event which was honouring Irish Americans in Atlanta," she said.
Ms Billingsley also said that money was not intended to silence opposition to Coca Cola in Colombia and said she was not aware of the identities of the intended honourees and the fundraiser.
Sinn Féin's acceptance of the donation came four months before the United Steel Workers Union and the International Labor Rights Fund filed suit in Florida under the Alien Tort Claims Act against Coca Cola and two Colombian bottling companies, alleging gross abuses of human rights.
On March 31 last, U.S. District Court Judge Jose E. Martinez dismissed Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola Colombia from the case on the ground that the company's bottling agreement did not give Coca-Cola control over labour relations issues affecting its Colombian bottlers.
Last July, US and Colombian unions began a one-year boycott of Coca Cola, saying it was necessary to highlight alleged human-rights abuses and signalled that they intended to appeal the case to have Coca Cola's name reinstated on the Florida lawsuit.