The Minister for Transport, Mr Cullen, is being "damaged" by continuing allegations that he misused taxpayers' money, a Government TD said last night.
Progressive Democrats TD Ms Liz O'Donnell said that the Standards in Public Office Commission - which is seeking legal advice before deciding whether to investigate contracts awarded to the Minister's political associate Ms Monica Leech - should be allowed to make its decision.
But she added that "so long as the matter goes on and on, as it seems to be doing, I think it has damaged the Minister".
She was speaking on RTÉ's The Week in Politics last night, in the wake of reports that Mr Cullen and a group including Ms Leech stayed on a tropical island en route to official business in Malaysia last year.
But appearing on the same programme, Fianna Fáil senator Mr Martin Mansergh defended the three-day stopover as "not a hanging offence".
Senator Mansergh said that on the trip in question, Mr Cullen had been out of the country for 25 days. "Are we saying that someone is not allowed a single day off during a period that long? That's totally unrealistic."
Details of the stay at a resort hotel in Langkawi emerged from Mr Cullen's reply to a parliamentary question tabled by Fine Gael TD Mr Paul McGrath.
But Ms O'Donnell said the Minister would have to "account to the house" in further parliamentary questions. She hoped the Standards in Public Office Commission could deal quickly with the matters before it and that they could be "put to bed one way or another".
Senator Mansergh also dismissed a report in Ireland on Sunday that Government TDs and Ministers were calling on Mr Cullen to step down. "I haven't heard a single colleague in either the Seanad or the Dáil saying that," he said.
A number of Government TDs contacted by The Irish Times yesterday also insisted that Mr Cullen's future was not being discussed. But one backbencher, who did not want to be identified, said he and others were "fed up" with the continuing revelations.
Meanwhile, the husband of a Dublin barrister named Ms Monika Leech has confirmed that her laptop computer was stolen in a burglary at the family home last June. Mr Cullen's similarly named PR consultant had already reported that her Waterford home was burgled, and her laptop stolen, also in June 2004.
The coincidence - reported in Village magazine - gives rise to suspicion that the burglaries were linked.
A spokesman for the Minister said last night he had no comment to make.
