Four people accused of covering up the rape of Mairia Cahill have issued a statement rejecting her claims.

The statement - issued by solicitors in Belfast - says the four people have been subjected to an "unprecedented media onslaught".

Padraic Wilson, Seamus Finucane, Briege Wright and Maura McCrory were all named by Mairia Cahill as having a role in covering up her alleged abuse by a senior IRA member.

In a statement tonight, their solicitor says the claims made against them are untrue - and that all four were acquitted of the claims in court, although their acquittals have been "ignored or devalued".

It says the four did not accept Ms Cahill's account of events, and that the case against them collapsed when Mairia Cahill decided not to give evidence in court, or allow herself to be cross-examined.

"In any normal society," the statement says, the acquittals "would be the end of the matter" - but in this case, it says the rule of law has been "subverted by the ongoing trial by the media".

The statement follows a meeting between Ms Cahill and Taoiseach Enda Kenny earlier - where Ms Cahill repeated her claims, and also accused the IRA of moving alleged sex abusers to the Republic to escape sanction in the North.