The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr Conor Lenihan, has rejected charges that he should not have joined his family on a short post-Christmas break following the South-East Asia tsunami.
Mr Lenihan, who is in charge of the Government's overseas aid budget, travelled to Lanzarote in the Canaries on January 2nd with his wife, Denise, and three children for a holiday that had been booked several months ago.
The holiday had been scheduled to last for two weeks, but Mr Lenihan left Lanzarote after five days for a crisis European Union meeting in Brussels of EU health and aid ministers on Friday.
Last night he described Labour Party criticism of him as "a complete sideshow", and said he had cleared his decision to travel with his family with the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern, before he left Dublin.
Yesterday he met in Paris with officials from the Organisation of Economic Co-Operation and Development to push for tougher value-for-money reviews of international aid budgets.
Today he will meet his French counterpart before leaving for Mauritius for meetings with representatives from some of the countries worst affected by the St Stephen's Day disaster.
Speaking from Paris last night, Mr Lenihan said the controversy was "a complete sideshow" that distracted from the "incredible efforts" being made by the Government and the Irish public to help the victims of the disaster.
The Government's major decisions on disaster aid were taken "between St Stephen's Day and New Year's Eve, when I was constantly in my office, or on the phone from home", he said last night.