The Chairman of Independent News & Media is calling on the Sinn Féin leader to retract comments he made in the US last week about holding a newspaper editor at gun point.

Leslie Buckley, speaking at a business event in Dublin on Friday evening, said: “The role of a free media in our democracy is of tantamount importance. A free press ensures government and public officials are held accountable, the public are informed and citizens are given a voice.”

Mr Buckley this evening said Adams’ comments were, “At best ... careless; at worst they were insidious.”

Mr Adams made the comments at a fundraising function in New York - referring to an Old IRA raid on the offices of the Irish independent.

Mr Adams began by speaking about Independent Newspapers and their coverage of the Mairia Cahill issue, before he moved on to the coverage of Michael Collins and other leaders of the 1916 rising. Adams described Collins’ action against the Irish Independent, telling the assembled guests in New York:

“What did Mick Collins do when the Independent criticised the freedom fight? He went in, sent volunteers in to the offices, held the editor at gunpoint and destroyed the entire printing press. That’s what he did,” he said.

The final words were drowned out by applause from guests.

“I’m obviously not advocating that,” he added, which was greeted with laughter from the audience.

The remarks - which were hit out at media scrutiny of Adams’and Sinn Féin’s handling of the Mairia Cahill's sex abuse allegations - have been criticised by journalism unions around the world. On Wednesday the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers and the World Editors Forum added their voices to those of the National Union of Journalist and the National Newspapers of Ireland in condemning the remarks.

NUJ chairman, Vincent Crowley, accepted the comments were “apparently in jest” but said they were nevertheless “wholly insensitive” and demonstrated “a lack of understanding of the role of a free press as a vital bulwark of a healthy democracy”.

“Deputy Adams took serious issue with the way Independent News & Media and many other media organisations have reported on Sinn Féin,” Mr Buckley said.

“It is the responsibility of the media in a democratic society to ask questions and to look for responses to those questions.”

Echoing the words of Crowley, Mr Buckley said Mr Adams’ comments,“show a complete lack of acceptance of the importance of a questioning, probing, authenticating and in some cases, skeptical media.”

“Of serious concern were comments by Mr. Adams about the Irish Independent, which have been masqueraded by him as a joke. In a complete historical vacuum, he referenced Michael Collins, stating that Collins sent volunteers into offices, held the editor at gunpoint and destroyed the entire printing press,” he said.

Mr Buckley said he believes the words were “a veiled threat by Mr. Adams not only to journalists at INM but the entire free media on this island, whether broadcast, online or print. “

Speak of his own newspaper’s history of dealing with intimidation against its journalists, Buckley said:

“The comments of Mr. Adams are all the more concerning because of the murders of two campaigning journalists from Independent News & Media - Veronica Guerin and Marty O’Hagan - to gun violence in the course of their work. In fact, I am astounded by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams’ remarks and urge him to reflect on what he has said. It is important that we as a society never forget their courage and bravery and the sacrifice they made.

Tomas Brunegård, President of WAN-IFRA, the global body representing 18,000 newspapers and online publishers this week wrote to the Sinn Féin leader. He said: “We respectfully call on you to retract these comments and to publicly affirm your abhorrence of all forms of violence against journalists.”

Buckley said this evening: “I echo Mr Brunegard’s comments and further state that the comments made by Mr. Adams have no place coming from the leader of any party that claims it is committed to the democratic process. I urge him to reflect on what he has said and retract his comments.”