The Taoiseach has accused Fine Gael of "gutter comments" about him and bringing political debate to a new low during the confidence motion debate in the Dáil on Wednesday.
As far as debates went "it was very low", Mr Ahern said on a visit to the National Ploughing Championships in Tullamore, Co Offaly, yesterday.
Asked if the debate had damaged him, Mr Ahern said: "None of these things do you any good, but anyway you just have to get on with it. When you're at my level there's always somebody out to try and trip you up somewhere, that's par for the course."
At a press conference after a walkabout, Mr Ahern was asked about the claim that half the nation did not believe he was telling the truth to the tribunal.
"I do not believe that. There were so many accusations thrown last night. I'd be here till tomorrow if I were trying to rectify, people change the events, change the facts, mixing up details, but you have to take it, you just have to get on with it," he said.
Mr Ahern said he still had the trust of the people, apart from Fine Gael, he added, with a slight tinge of humour.
When asked about the claim that he had treated the public as "gullible fools", Mr Ahern said he had listened patiently to everything that was said and discounted about 98 per cent of it.
Questioned about the claim that the Green Party had wanted the motion amended, Mr Ahern denied this. "We agreed a Government motion, so everyone has an input to that."
Regarding the stability of the coalition he recovered his sense of humour and said: "I'd say the Government, there's a question whether it will last till May or June 2012, I'm not sure which month it'll be." He planned to stay Taoiseach for "a long, long time", he said.
Asked why Deputy Ned O'Keeffe had not been there for the vote, Mr Ahern said that Fine Gael had only told them they were putting down the motion at 1pm on Wednesday, and they would give no pairs.
He said Fianna Fáil had a number of people abroad on Government business and Mary Coughlan was the only one they could get back, while a few people had been ill and had a family illness.
Mr Ahern side-stepped the question on what might happen to Mr O'Keeffe by saying he had not been whip for 24 years.
Asked if his legacy had been tarnished by these events, the Taoiseach replied that he was interested to find that nobody at the ploughing championships had mentioned the issues surrounding the tribunal.
"You wonder about something the night before, and then you come out and you walk through thousands and thousands of people and nobody even mentions the night before. It does say something, doesn't it?
"It says some people put a lot of focus onto things that 99 per cent of people do not," he said.
Asked about being called a liar and the Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny claiming he had made up the Manchester payments, Mr Ahern said he thought as debates went "it was very low".
" Unfortunately I felt that some of the new Fine Gael people were bringing a new low into it. At one stage they wanted to talk about cleaning up politics and then they brought in gutter comments," he said.
Mr Ahern singled out an attack made on him by new Fine Gael TD Leo Varadkar.
"I am big enough to take it, but when you hear a new deputy who isn't a wet day in the place not alone castigating me - well, I will take that - but also castigating Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. I wish him well, I would say he will get an early exit," he concluded.