This isn't the first time that Sinn Féin has used a victim's feelings as an excuse for not giving a full response to controversial allegations.
Martin McGuinness said he couldn't go into detail about events leading up to the murder of IRA informer Frank Hegarty in 1986 because it would hurt the feelings of the Hegarty family and he wanted to protect them.
Gerry Adams and other Sinn Féin politicians used the same argument for Mr Adams not offering an adequate explanation of events after his niece, Aine Tyrell, told him that her father, Mr Liam Adams, had raped her from the age of four.
Ms Tyrell was angry that Sinn Féin leaders used her as an excuse for Mr Adams's avoiding answering specific questions on the issue. "All I hear is, 'We can't address this or that question because of Aine. We have to protect Aine, she is the victim'.
"They don't know me so I find it hard to believe they have all this sympathy for me. I want them to stop using my name. I don't need protecting. It's all a smokescreen."
Mr Adams was as anxious to keep Ms Tyrell's alleged rape out of the media as Mr McGuinness was to ensure the Hegartys didn't talk to journalists. Ms Tyrell said: "In 2007, he (Gerry Adams) heard the Sunday World were planning to do a story about it.
"He frantically phoned me about 20 times. He wanted to obtain a court injunction with my help to stop the story. He said he needed to make sure it didn't get into the press in order to protect me." Ms Tyrell refused to assist him.
Ms Tyrell broke her silence in 2009 to give a powerful account to UTV of the alleged sexual abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father. Mr Adams contacted her in an attempt to prevent further media coverage.
Ms Tyrell stated: "He advised me against talking to journalists again. 'You've no experience dealing with the press,' he said."
Mr Liam Adams became a senior figure in Sinn Féin in Dundalk in the 1990s. Mr Gerry Adams said he couldn't tell anyone else in the party that his brother was an alleged paedophile because Ms Tyrell had demanded that he protect her anonymity.
"That was nonsense," Ms Tyrell said. "I'd have accompanied Gerry to meet his colleagues in Sinn Féin, to talk to the ard comhairle about what Liam had done so they could expel him from the party."
Liam Adams has been charged in connection with the alleged abuse and was due to appear in a Belfast court in November 1008 but he didn't show up. In December 2009, he entered a Garda station in Sligo but couldn't be detained without a warrant.
A European arrest warrant was later issued and a judge will rule on the extradition back to Belfast tomorrow (Monday).
