The recent controversy about his personal finances during the early 1990s was "hugely unfair", Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said.
"From my perspective it was a hugely unfair period, but that is how the world is. But 30 years' experience in politics teaches you one thing: you fight your corner, you explain your position.
"I was glad to be able to do that. There are always those in politics who have agendas. There are those who are personally out to get you all of the time. Some of them have been personally out to get me for 20 years.
"But you tell it as it is and you hope it works out for the best," he told radio journalists in Farmleigh yesterday morning during the recording of Christmas and New Year's messages.
He went on: "For 22 days of the year I got the national newspapers for the first time in my 30-year career for 18 headlines in a row. One national newspaper gave me 16 headlines out of 18."
The controversy arose shortly before the Dáil resumed in September.
Mr Ahern is still understood to be deeply annoyed by the controversy and, in particular, by the decision of The Irish Times to publish the original details of the payments from friends to him in 1993.
Later, the Government Information Service tried to ensure that the Taoiseach's remarks were not broadcast, on the grounds that he had recorded embargoed statements for the holiday period.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte has demanded that the Dáil debate the contents of the Moriarty tribunal's report into the finances of the late taoiseach Charlie Haughey when it resumes in late January.
"This is the meaning of accountability," said Mr Rabbitte.
