Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said today he respected the right of Jean McConville’s family to protest but reiterated he had "nothing to do" with her kidnapping and murder.
He said he has already condemned and apologised for her death because "Irish republicans committed that offence".
Mrs McConville was taken by the IRA from her home in 1972, killed and secretly buried in Co Louth. Her body was found in 2003.
Her daughter Helen McKendry has campaigned against the Sinn Féin leader's decision to run in the general election in Co Louth, claiming he ordered her mother's abduction and killing.
Ms McKendry and her husband Seamus led the campaign that eventually resulting in the Provisional IRA agreeing to disclose the location of the "disappeared".
She handed out leaflets in Dundalk yesterday asking the electorate not to support the Sinn Féin leader in the election. She held a placard urging people to remember her mother, as well as Tom Oliver, also abducted and killed by the IRA, and Det Garda Jerry McCabe.
Mr Adams, who has repeatedly denied membership of the IRA, said today he respected the family's right to protest. "I have to say that in whatever strongest way possible that I can articulate it that I had nothing to do with the abduction and killing of that unfortunate woman," he said. "I have already condemned it. I have apologised for it because Irish republicans committed that offence."
He was speaking in Dublin today outside Anglo Irish Bank on St Stephen's Green as he launched a billboard campaign against the payment of Ireland’s bank debt.
"Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour want to put €30.6 billion into toxic banks like Anglo. It's not too late to stop this. Votáil Sinn Féin,” the poster states.
Mr Adams said Irish people are in “a fix” because of bad decisions taken by the Government and other parties. “We're also in a fix because of the way the big banks loaded their debts and encouraged the boom," he said, adding that that part of the solution was for the EU and German "bankmeisters" to understand that Ireland cannot afford to pay.
“Far better for it to be dealt with now on Irish terms than to be continuing the way it's going and we all end up in a huge crisis in a year or two years' time,” he said. "Deal with it rationally, sensibly now rather than the madness that's going on at the moment, us all ending up in a huge crisis further up the road."
