Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has insisted he is "totally tax compliant" and that he does not owe any monies to the Revenue Commissioners.
Mr Ahern confirmed to reporters at the weekend that he made a payment to the Revenue in the past six months relating to the payments and gifts he received in the early 1990s.
He denied this was at odds with his statement in the Dáil last October that he had no tax liabilities on the money he had received.
And the Taoiseach insisted that his advice was that this was still the case and that he would be refunded most of the money he had given to the Revenue Commissioners.
Speaking today in an interview with journalist Matt Cooper on Today FM, Mr Ahern said he was tax compliant and that this was not at odds with what he had told the Dail in his statement last year.
"When I said that in the Dáil I hadn't even communicated with the Revenue. So what I said in the Dail was absolutely factual," Mr Ahern said.
On his dealings with the Revenue since then, Mr Ahern said his advisers believe that he is "totally tax compliant and that I don't owe anything".
The Irish Timesreported today that the Taoiseach was approached by the Revenue Commissioners after the payments controversy last October with a query as to whether he had a tax liability from that time.
On the statement he made at the weekend with regard to payments from the Manchester-based businessman Micheál Wall in the 1990s, Mr Ahern said transcripts of his interview with the Mahon tribunal had been "inappropriately leaked".
The issue he had been asked to deal with by the Mahon tribunal was in relation to the Quarryvale lands in Dublin, he said. He said it was not his fault if issues surrounding the rent of his house had been "leaked".
"That wasn't my fault. The issue I was to deal with was not my personal finances," Mr Ahern said.
The Taoiseach said he had not been "forced" to issue the lengthy statement yesterday about his financial affairs and that he had provided it voluntarily.
In his 5,000-word statement issued yesterday, Mr Ahern maintained that leaks about his personal finances were an attempt to "discredit me and to damage Fianna Fáil" and he called them "an act of public deception".
On the forthcoming general election, Mr Ahern said in today's interview he believed he was the best candidate to be the next taoiseach.
And he said the question of him stepping aside as leader of Fianna Fáil if other parties negotiating to go into government with his party had an issue with him as leader did not arise.
Mr Ahern said the other parties' leaders were "all fine people". But he said the Opposition parties had increased unemployment in government.
"I want this country to go forward. I want the prosperity we have built up in this country to go forward. I don't want to go backward," he said.
The Taoiseach said there was more he wanted to do in Government.
"There's still huge deprivation problems in this country. I haven't solved every problem."
Asked whether he would appoint the same Ministers to the same portfolios if returned to Government after the May 24 thgeneral election, Mr Ahern said he would worry about that in two weeks.
"I hope I'm in that position," he said.
He noted that he had changed almost every ministry within the government over the past 10 years, however.
Asked whether he was fearful about losing the election, Mr Ahern said he was "never fearful", that he was a democrat and he would deal with whatever the reality was after the election.