Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy has described some of the media reporting of the death of a Garda sergeant and her newborn son as "disgusting, insensitive and hurtful".
In a statement issued this afternoon Mr Conroy said Tania Corcoran was "a woman, a wife and a mother and her occupation, which in no way contributed to her tragic death, is irrelevant.
"Likewise, her husband Aidan is also a member of An Garda Síochána, and this fact, coupled with any aspect of his career in An Garda Síochána, was irrelevant to the death of his wife and son, and any references to that were unnecessary," Mr Conroy added.
Ms Corcoran (34) died early on Friday morning after giving birth to twins by Caesarean section at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth.
One of her twins, Zach, died soon after birth and the other, Adam, is in a critical condition in a Dublin hospital.
Her husband, Aidan McCabe, was a member of the Emergency Response Unit team involved in the shooting dead of John Carthy at his home in Abbeylara, Co Longford, in April 2000.
The commissioner's statemetment added: "It is appreciated by the Garda that the circumstances of the death of Tania and Zach may well have been newsworthy, but the manner of media coverage in certain media outlets was disgusting, insensitive and hurtful."
He thanked those in the media who reported the story with "sensitivity and who dealt with the story as the human tragedy, which it is". He also said the families should be given the space and privacy they need to deal with their grief.
Earlier, senior gardaí called for reporting protocols to be drawn up following the weekend media coverage of the deaths.
The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) criticised some of the print media for intruding on the private grief of the family over the weekend and said it abhorred the "brutal and callous headlines" used.
Speaking on RTÉ radio this morning, AGSI general secretary Joe Dirwan said the family had been telephoned by the media over the weekend and that one family friend was called three times while attending to proceedings in the mortuary.
"The stories and the headlines in particular were brutal and callous and showed a complete disregard for the feelings of her family. There was a complete lack of ordinary human feeling and consideration for the family in the media calls to the home and the eventual news stories," said Mr Dirwan.
The garda and her son were buried yesterday.