The Minister for Health, Micheál Martin, has said that the Dunne Inquiry into the organ retention controversy should be allowed to complete its work.
He added that the inquiry can get to the full truth and rejected calls for it to be put on a statutory footing.
Mr Martin said he believed that many of the recent revelations regarding the supply of pituitary glands from deceased children and adults to pharmaceutical firms had been uncovered as a result of the inquiry's work, which is being conducted in private.
The minister also insisted that the Department of Health had been unaware of the supply of organs for the manufacture of human growth hormone in the 70s and early 80s.
