Sinn Fein and the republican movement were condemned by the former Progressive Democrats leader, Mr Dessie O'Malley, over the delay in recovering the remains of IRA victims abducted and killed in the 1970s and 1980s.
Mr O'Malley (Limerick East) said the Oireachtas and the British parliament had given immunity to the murderers to assist the families. "With the benefit of hindsight, and if the locations of the bodies are not revealed, one must ask whether that was wise."
He said the electorate, before considering whether to vote for Sinn Fein in the forthcoming elections, should "think of the relatives standing in a lonely vigil in different locations around the country while the Garda tries to locate the bodies of their loved ones. The only crime of at least one of these loved ones is that she tried to comfort a dying soldier."
He said he was not convinced the self-styled republican movement was "capable of graduating from gangsterism to government". Either it "accepts the values of a civilised and democratic society or it does not. It signalled in recent years that it wanted to make the transition from paramilitarism to parliamentarianism. There must be serious doubts about that unless it is willing to resolve this situation."
Speaking during a debate on human rights, he said Ireland was "almost comparable to the people of certain countries who have seen appalling atrocities and have learned to live with them".
"We barely comment on these occurrences," he said referring to the streets of Belfast where "almost on a nightly basis, republican and loyalist thugs administer what they describe as justice to innocent people, who have not been convicted of anything, by mutilating them for life."
He said the families of those who disappeared had been "singled out for terrible treatment by the IRA and its political wing. Their relatives were abducted and murdered; they were denied information about their whereabouts for 25 years or more; they were not allowed to give them a Christian burial; and they were never given the chance to grieve properly as bereaved relatives."
The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, said human rights were a declared policy priority of the Government.
"While I strongly support the efforts which are being made at political level to try to resolve the crisis in the Balkans, I am also very much aware of the unprecedented humanitarian challenges which face us, and which will continue to face us, over the coming months.
"I saw the squalid conditions in the camps during my visit to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, known as FYROM, last week: dispossessed men, women and children doing their best to cope with dignity in hot, overcrowded tents with inadequate sanitation."
The Fine Gael spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr Gay Mitchell, said the view that NATO was a dirty word and that any association with it, however meek, was not worthy of discussion was not a security policy.
"If human rights and humanitarian aid are to be delivered, there will be times when peacemaking, as distinct from peacekeeping, will be a necessity."
The Labour spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, said the numbers of people seeking asylum in the State had been relatively small compared to some other European states. "The response of the Department of Justice seems to have been driven by costs and the need for neat administrative procedures."
