Minister for Health Mary Harney said today a trip to Florida with State agency Fás in 2004 was "justified" and that she was on ministerial business and not on holiday.
It emerged in recent days that part of a $410 bill for a beauty and nail salon, paid by Fás, represented the cost of a wash and blow-dry for Ms Harney, then minister for enterprise, prior to her attendance at an event there.
The sum was one of a number of controversial expenses amounts, totalling more than €640,000, paid to senior executives at Fás over a four-year period in the course of promoting the agency's Science Challenge programme in the US.
The sums also included several first class flights, costing thousands of euro each, for Fás executives and, in some cases, their spouses.
Fás director general Rody Molloy resigned on Tuesday following several days of media coverage of the matter.
Speaking with regard to Fás today, Ms Harney said that at all times she travelled with the agency as tánaiste and minister for enterprise and employment. "I was not on a holiday, I was there working," she said, referring to the Florida trip.
She believed the trip was "justified", as 15 of the top science and engineering graduates in the country had a unique opportunity to be there on placement with the US government space agency Nasa for a year.
"Fás was asked to go there and we were very impressed with what we saw," she said.
Questioned about the salon payment, Ms Harney said when she was on official engagements she only "engaged in legitimate expenses" and that any expenses she claimed were on the basis of advice.
"I don't use tax payers money for personal grooming," Ms Harney said.
The Minister has already insisted the $410 bill did not relate entirely to her own hair bill and she has said the treatment did not involve a manicure. It is not clear exactly how much of the bill related to Ms Harney.
Asked about use of the Government jet on such trips, she said this was approved by the Taoiseach.
She felt it was inappropriate for her to address questions concerning her husband, Brian Geoghegan, then chairman of Fás, on such trips and that such questions should be referred to him.
Ms Harney travelled to Florida on the Government jet along with a party of seven others in July 2004. The group included Mr Geoghegan; the former director general of Fás, Rody Molloy, and his wife; the then secretary general of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Paul Haran, and his wife; and Ms Harney's press secretary and her private secretary.
She said today she fully supported the inquiry by the Dáil Public Accounts Committee into matters at Fás and that when she was given information anonymously, she reported it to gardai.
The PAC has been inquiring into Fás, arising from a special audit inquiry into expenditures by the corporate affairs division of the agency in the period 2000 to 2004.
The Comptroller and Auditor General, John Buckley, is expected to open a separate investigation once the PAC has concluded its own inquiries.
The Fás board held an emergency meeting earlier this week and will report to Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Mary Coughlan today. She will bring the report to Cabinet next Tuesday.