A Sinn Féin Councillor has echoed the Government's call for Sinn Féin Leader Gerry Adams to reveal information, if he has any, about the expulsion of alleged sex offenders from Northern Ireland.
Speaking to RTÉ's This Week South Dublin County Councillor for Clondalkin Eoin Ó Broin said: "Well certainly if he has he should do."
He continued: "I agree with Simon Harris on that. If I had information about any of this at any time during my 20 years as a Sinn Féin activist, I would have brought that forward."
He was responding to remarks made earlier on the programme by Minister of State at the Department of Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform Simon Harris who called for Mr Adams to explain references to alleged sex abusers being expelled in a blog written last Sunday.
The Fine Gael TD for Wicklow/East Carlow said: "There are allegations out there that the IRA moved people from one jurisdiction to the next.
"Gerry Adams is the leader of the republican movement, we need to know, and it’s crucially important for the protection of our children, were child abusers moved from Northern Ireland into the Republic?
"Were they moved, does Gerry Adams have any knowledge ... we need to know what Gerry Adams knows".
Mr Harris said Mr Adams has gone into “victim mode”, as if he is the victim here and "won’t answer the questions".
Mr Adams wrote in his Léargas blog last week that: "The IRA on occasion shot alleged sex offenders or expelled them".
Referring to calls made by Taoiseach Enda Kenny during the week for Mr Adams to reveal any knowledge of child abusers from Northern Ireland being moved south of the border, Mr Adams told supporters in Belfast yesterday that he had "no knowledge of the claims the Taoiseach was making".
Earlier two Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin front bench TDs disagreed sharply about statements made by Belfast woman Máiría Cahill who alleges she was raped by a member of the IRA in the 1990s.
Regarding the allegation that she was raped by a member of the IRA, the Sinn Fein spokesman on Health, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, said there seemed to be a consensus across the board that "something of that order did happen".
In an interview on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics, Mr Ó Caolain said, however, that he did not know if Ms Cahill was confronted by her alleged attacker in an IRA court, as she contends.
Fianna Fáil spokesman on Transport, Tourism and Sport Timmy Dooley questioned how Mr Ó Caolain could accept one element of Ms Cahill's contention - that she was raped - but not the other - that she had been made to confront her alleged attacker by the IRA.
Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week Mr Harris said:"Gerry Adams tells us he wasn’t a member of the IRA, he attends an awful lot of IRA funerals and gives an awful lot if IRA orations and apologises for an awful lot of IRA activity, but tells us he has nothing to do with it."
Some victims still afraid to go to police
Meanwhile, Director of Foyle’s Women’s Aid Marie Brown said some of her clients were, and still are, afraid to go to the police.
She said she did know of one woman who was forced to confront her rapist, which traumatised the victim even more.
Ms Brown said she believes that many women went to groups within their communities to deal with domestic violence and abuse and they are not really getting the expert help they need.
She said within communities the paramilitary groups “become the power” and they dealt with everything.
For some victims, she said, "that would have been their only access to justice".
Ms Brown said it was a "horrendous time" in those communities but she said her concern is that this does not still continue to happen today and that there is a recognition that they "have to stand back off these issues".
Many of the women were worried that elements in the RUC would use them for their own purposes for information, "women in the North were used as political footballs when it suited everybody", she said.
Ms Brown said her agency has in the past been asked to remove the police phone number from their leaflets and she was asked to make assurances that women that came to her would not go to the police.
She said she resisted the intimidation and her agency continued to train police officers in dealing with women reporting abuse.
Ms Brown said that there is still some "community control" in play, which means some victims are still afraid to come forward to report abuse.
She said for many there is a silence about "not being allowed to tell what it was really like".
