The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, said yesterday that she had no intention of resigning and would not be "hounded out of office" by the Opposition.
It was the first occasion on which Ms Harney made herself available to answer media questions since the Circuit Court judgment that the trial of Mr Charles Haughey on charges of obstructing the McCracken tribunal should be indefinitely postponed as a result of her comment in a newspaper interview that he should be convicted and sent to jail.
Ms Harney said she was very surprised at the decision and that it had very far-reaching consequences for the trials of high-profile individuals and for free speech in our society. "But you will understand that I have to be somewhat cautious in relation to what has arisen," she said.
Asked if she believed there should be a judicial review of the case, she said: "It would be wrong of me to comment in relation to that."
Speaking about the fallout from the judgment, Ms Harney said she had heard someone say yesterday morning that she had lost her moral authority, and that her credibility had been questioned. However she said that she did not accept this and if she felt it was the case she would do the honourable thing.
"I am not going to be hounded out of office by Ruairi Quinn and John Bruton. I am involved in very important work and I want to complete it."
Speaking about her relationship with fellow party member Ms Liz O'Donnell, who said on RTE radio on Tuesday she believed Ms Harney regretted her comment that the public would forget about the O'Flaherty controversy in a few months, the Tanaiste said it was "excellent".
"Liz O'Donnell is an outstanding member of the present Government, an outstanding member of the present Progressive Democrats, she is a personal friend of mine. She has been extremely supportive to me both personally and politically over the last number of months."
What Ms Harney said about people forgetting the controversy was: "I would predict that three or four months from now, will anybody remember this?"
Questioned about it yesterday, she said: "I never said that actually. I suppose if things could be accurately reported then one might have some chance of getting fair play. I think the Irish people look at my record in public life and they judge me fairly.
"I am not saying that I do everything right, that I don't make mistakes. The past few weeks have been particularly difficult politically, very difficult. I think that everybody would accept that but we've got to move on."
She said that she had spoken about the appointment of Mr O'Flaherty to the European Investment Bank on many occasions already and that it had not been discussed at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting.
"I want to move on from that. I am not going to talk about it today."
After a tough few weeks the Progressive Democrat party pledged yesterday to put recent woes behind it. According to sources, the tone of the weekly party meeting was "surprisingly positive".
"In case there is any doubt, there was no acrimony in relation to recent events," said one senior source. "Liz went on the radio to defend Mary on the O'Flaherty issue, it was done with full consent. Liz has made the point before that it was a Fianna Fail appointment and she merely repeated that."