The Government has backed the Northern Secretary's rejection of demands for a public inquiry into the so-called Stormont-gate scandal.
The scandal centred on the revelations that a senior Sinn Féin party member had been an agent for British intelligence for more than two decades.
Following talks with Northern Secretary Peter Hain today, the Minister for Foreign Affairs said the whole truth about the affair would never be known.
Dermot Ahern said the fall-out from the scandal should not allow either the Irish or British governments to be diverted from the goal of getting a devolved government restored in Northern Ireland.
Earlier, Peter Hain told RTÉ News the British government remained determined to make devolution work.
Sinn Féin said it was time for the British government to end what it called political policing once and for all. Gerry Adams was speaking after a separate meeting with Peter Hain.
Speaking after the talks, Mr Adams said it was time for the British government to end what he called political policing once and for all.
Mr Hain said that police forces around the world use police informants to identify crime and other purposes but nobody talks about it because it is not in the national interest to do so.
The former SF official, Denis Donaldson, was expelled from the Sinn Féin Party on Friday and later said he had been recruited in the 1980s as a paid agent.
The revelation came just a week after the dropping of charges against Mr Donaldson and two other men accused of being part of a republican spy ring at Stormont in 2002.
The power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland collapsed following the arrests of the three men.
