The Taoiseach has clarified recent remarks about being at meetings that "might have bordered on the unethical".
Mr Ahern told the Dáil that such meetings were linked to the peace process. "In my involvement in Northern Ireland I sometimes felt less than comfortable meeting people who had been involved at first hand in acts which make me feel uncomfortable". But, he said, "in the interests of the peace process I continued". He said he could spell it out, "but I would rather not".
The Taoiseach was responding to Green Party leader Mr Trevor Sargent, who had asked what did the Taoiseach regard as unethical.
Mr Sargent referred to the remarks which the Taoiseach had made in the Dáil about a meeting with the president of Shell and the Corrib gas project. Mr Ahern said he had attended "a fair few meetings over the years that might border on the unethical, but I am not guilty of it in this case", in reference to the Shell meeting.
Mr Sargent asked about other meetings and whether the Taoiseach "can look me in the eye and tell me that after he became Minister in 1987 there was no procurement project in which he was involved that was not clean and above board".
Mr Ahern said he was in the Dáil when there was 20 per cent unemployment. "I have always worked to find ways of investment". He would always take an interest in these matters and meet people who wanted to invest and bring employment to Ireland. "The best Governments all over the world, with the highest ethical standards, do that."
When Mr Sargent said it was "time that clear political leadership is given to the ending of corruption", Mr Ahern said he did not believe that Ireland was a corrupt country.
