Dail report: Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin claimed last night his party had been subjected to a "stream of political invective".
Mr Ó Caoláin expressed sympathy with the family of Robert McCartney, adding that his brutal murder had devastated a family and shocked a local community.
"As the Sinn Féin leadership, locally and nationally, has done many times, I reiterate the call for anyone with information on this murder to come forward with that information and to actively assist the family."
Mr Ó Caoláin was speaking during the resumed debate on a Fine Gael Private Members' motion condemning the McCartney murder and urging those with knowledge to give statements to the "investigating police".
He expressed regret that Fine Gael refused to accept a Sinn Féin amendment, which urged those who did not support or trust the PSNI to provide information to "the family, a solicitor or any other authoritative or reputable person or body".
He added that "if this essential amendment is defeated, we must very regrettably withhold our endorsement of the motion before us and only because it is too narrow in its construction".
When a division was called, Sinn Féin did not have the required 10 TDs to force a vote. Its five deputies were supported by Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins and Independent TD Tony Gregory. The Fine Gael motion was passed without a division.
Earlier, Mr Ó Caoláin said that Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern, "who, like so many others, was blinded by his own deep-rooted antipathy towards Sinn Féin", had to do a U-turn and face reality when he said that people could use other avenues than the PSNI.
Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said the greatest Provo deceit, which had been swallowed by a minority of media commentators, was the suggestion that IRA thuggery and criminality was the sole responsibility of the IRA and that Sinn Féin "was some separate democratic chrysalis, seeking to break out of a paramilitary cocoon and to become an exclusively peaceful and democratic butterfly".
Progressive Democrats TD Liz O'Donnell, who was involved in negotiating the Belfast Agreement, said the whole idea was that Sinn Féin would embrace politics. "It is in all our interest, therefore, that politics works for them in achieving their political goals. But we never for a moment imagined, nor can we accept now, that thuggery and criminality would replace the military campaign as a modus operandi."
Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said the lesson from the McCartney family was that people could do no other than go to the PSNI.
Independent TD Finian McGrath said the perpetrators of the murder had to be brought to justice regardless of politics. "I also ask that the political parties in this House, and in other places, not use the murder of an innocent man to score political points." A simple solution was for the perpetrators to give themselves up.
Mr Higgins said those involved had not reckoned with the intervention of six formidable working-class women challenging the intimidation of the bullies strutting around the Short Strand and Market areas, thinking they could "literally get away with murder".
While he supported the SF amendment, people coming forward in that way would have effect only if they were prepared to give evidence in court.
