The Taoiseach has said his flight home from a recent trip to Japan was changed due to security advice, and denied it was in order to make it back for Cork's All Ireland semi-final at Croke Park.
During a heated exchange with Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty at the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Micheál Martin said his flight home travelled through Toronto rather than Dubai due to the risk of flight cancellations caused by airspace closures and the security situation facing the Middle East.
He told the committee: "The people who organised the trip on my behalf took a view that the Middle East was problematic in terms of cancellations and activity.
"The alternative would have had me in at 12pm, the way I went I came in at 8am. I had nothing to do with it - I don't book the travel.
"In terms of t he security at the time, these were booked a week in advance, in the Middle East there are issues we all know, and in terms of cancellation of flights and challenges, that was the precautionary approach that those who booked the flights took."
Mr Martin later added: "Can I just say, categorically, the truth does matter in these matters.
"This had nothing to do with the match, the match was on at 5pm that day, so either route would have had me in at 8 or 12."
Mr Doherty said the "facts" were that Mr Martin would have missed the match, which the Taoiseach described as "rubbish".
Mr Doherty asked if the security advice was shared by the Department of the Taoiseach with the media cohort who travelled to Japan to cover the trip.
He said: "What you're telling us is your department had advice - do not fly into Dubai on the way home.
"So you booked the flight home through Toronto at a cost to the taxpayer. But there was media travelling with you, and it appears you never shared the security advice to members of the Irish media.
"If there was a security advice that risked you flying through Dubai, why would you not share that with other Irish citizens who were accompanying you on the trip?"
Mr Martin said members of the media took their own advices and organised their own travel.
Mr Doherty then pressed the Taoiseach on whether there was an additional cost in changing the flights, to which Mr Martin said to his knowledge there was not.
Mr Doherty said: "Obviously there had to be an additional cost, is it not the case that there were already flights home through Dubai and then you went and booked other flights through Toronto?"
Mr Martin said he would submit the final cost to the committee at a later date and that it would also be published online.
