The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, has defended the church-State deal on compensation for child abuse victims and said the differences between the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, and Dr Michael Woods were a matter for them.
She said she wished the State did not have to pay any money towards the fund, but there was no more money forthcoming from the institutions.
Ms Harney also insisted that she and Mr McDowell were "most certainly not at odds" over the deal.
The Tánaiste refused to be drawn on the statement by Mr McDowell that he had been excluded as attorney general from some meetings.
She said it was not her job to get involved "in the legal intricacies" of the matter.
"Only Michael McDowell can speak for his experience. Everybody has to speak about their own experiences.
"I can't speak for Michael McDowell. I was not the law agent of the State. I was not aware of what Michael McDowell's involvement clearly was . . . All I know is what happened at Cabinet meetings," she said.
It was a matter between the outgoing minister and the attorney general.
"I am responsible for the political issues that came before Cabinet. I stand over the decision I made. It was collective responsibility in relation to this issue."
Ms Harney said the Government could have walked away from the negotiations with the religious institutions and got nothing. It would have had to take all the consequences of that.
"Was there a possibility of a better deal? The answer is, there probably wasn't. That was the information available to the Government. It was on that basis the Government made its decision," she said.
The minister for education at the time, Dr Michael Woods, had told the Cabinet on a number of occasions that there would be no more money forthcoming, Ms Harney said.
"I would wish that we didn't live in a country where the State felt it necessary to do this, but the reality is we believed in all the circumstances that it was right that a fair and appropriate system of compensation would be put in place."
Had the Government not struck a deal, the abuse victims would have had to go to the courts, the Tánaiste said.
"And there are huge legal difficulties and doubts and perplexities about that as well.
"So there was no ideal situation here."
