Senior Sinn Féin member Mr Martin McGuinness once told the media that civilians were killed and maimed by Provisional IRA bombs "through their own fault".
Mr McGuinness made the comments on radio in 1972 in Derry, where he was a leading member of the Provisional IRA. The tape was replayed to him last Thursday in the US by presenter Neal Conan on National Public Radio.
Mr McGuinness was asked during the 1972 interview if it was inevitable some civilians would be hurt in bomb attacks. He replied: "That is quite right, you know, but we have always given ample warning and anybody that was hurt was hurt through their own fault.
"Being too nosey, sticking around the place where the bomb was after they were told to get clear. It is only been through their own fault they have been hurt."
After replaying the tape, Mr Conan asked Mr McGuinness what he thought of his comments following the IRA's recent apology for civilian deaths.
He responded: "It is understandable given the kind of conflict we have been through that people wish - sometimes in order to score political points - to drag up different things that people did in the past. I think what we have to deal with is where we are at the moment."
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, has said he was never a member of the IRA.
Security and republican sources have insisted he was a leading member of the organisation when it carried out the Bloody Friday bombings, which killed seven civilians and two British soldiers and injured 130 people. Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of Bloody Friday.
Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster on Saturday, Mr Adams said: "I have been active, and it is a matter of public record, in Sinn Féin for all of my time within republican politics. I have not been a member of the IRA." Mr Adams also claimed the IRA's apology last week had nothing to do with the political crisis in the North.