Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he has "confidence" in Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe, who is expected to address an issue in relation to his expenses during General Election 2020 in the coming days.
Mr Donohoe also recently amended a declaration to the Standards in Public Office Commission in relation to a donation by businessman Michael Stone for General Election 2016.
In a statement to the Dáil on Wednesday, Minister Donohoe said that during a review "in recent weeks" he was made aware for the first time that "a personal payment" of €1,100 had been made to workers who put up election posters in 2016.
He acknowledged that he made a "clear mistake" in not including the cost in his election expenses, something for which he apologised.
The expenses were amended on Sunday and given to the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO), he said.
Mr Martin said he has spoken to Mr Donohoe over the weekend and he is "satisfied" with his explanation of the issue over election expenses.
Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, Mr Martin added that he has confidence in him in his role as Minister for Public Expenditure.
"Of course I have confidence in him," he said.
He said he does not want to preempt what Mr Donohoe might say in the Dáil on Tuesday but that it is an opportunity to answer questions.
He said the minister wants to give a "comprehensive account" and answer questions but added it is ultimately up to SIPO to determine this.
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Earlier on RTÉ's The Week in Politics, Government Chief Whip Hildegarde Naughton insisted that the Mr Donohoe has been transparent about his election expenses.
However, Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore said Mr Donohoe had not been transparent to date because he had failed to answer questions in the Dáil last week.
Sinn Féin's Matt Carthy said this is a controversy around the value of a donation which "objective observers" believe is greater than the publicly stated figures.
'Issue' with health service management
Separately, the Tánaiste said there is an "issue with governance and management" within the health service.
Mr Martin said some hospitals are doing better than others and lessons need to be taken from that, while adding there can be different circumstances in hospitals.
While he said "unprecedented" resources have been added into the health service and there is a stronger focus on enhanced community care, more can be done on recruitment and retention of staff.
He said this is important to ensure the recent scenes of overcrowding in hospitals are not repeated.
"On the governance side, we have to work and there is a need to make sure we have consistency and better perhaps capacity in terms of human resource management within the health service," he said.
"I think there is an issue in terms of human-resource management, in terms of faster recruitment of personnel into the health service and the retention," Mr Martin added.
He paid tribute to workers who worked additional hours and made a "significant difference" during the overcrowding at emergency departments.
Separately he said the clinical and medical advice is that full Emergency Departments with senior consultants is not a "realistic proposition" in some hospital locations
Cost of living
He also said Government does not anticipate a cliff edge regarding cost-of-living supports.
However, Mr Martin indicated assessments of the deployment of resources will be made.
"We have to keep a strong eye on next winter because of the likelihood and unfortunate situation that the war is going to continue in Ukraine, there will be a lot of movements to stock up again in terms of gas supplies and so on for the next winter." he said.
Without indicating what supports are to be extended, he said Government is going to look at some measures including heating issues.
He said consideration will be made in February ahead of the expiry date for some of the measures that have been implemented.
"Getting people through winter is very important. And we have to balance then the consumption and utilisation of energy with measures to reduce that as well as keeping the prices down," he said.
Protocol
Mr Martin said he has always accepted unionist concerns over the NI protocol and he thinks the European Union has also.
"The EU has been very flexible over the last 12 months in seeking to engage with the United Kingdom government to try and resolve issues," he said.
He said the good news is that they are in serious discussions in relation to this and that space should be given to them to resolve these issues.
