Former Fianna Fáil Minister Willie O'Dea has defended his past public comments on the Mahon Tribunal in the Dáil.

Mr O'Dea said that however flippant his comments may have been they paled into insignificance beside comments made by some superior court justices during the years the tribunal sat.

He quoted the High Court in 2004 and Justice Hardiman.

Mr O'Dea said he was surprised the national broadcaster could only find one statement from him on the tribunal.

He said he had enthusiastically supported the establishment of the tribunal and said he would not be lectured to by Sinn Féin.

Meanwhile, the Mahon Tribunal has unreservedly apologised to Conor Haughey, son of former Taoiseach Charles Haughey.

It made the apology for including his name instead of that of his brother, Ciaran, in the table of contents and in Chapter 17 of its report.

It said Conor Haughey had no involvement with the tribunal inquiries and that the error had been corrected.

Elsewhere, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has rejected assertions in the Dáil that a planning inquiry had been suppressed by the Government.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said internal reviews had been carried out into a number of local authorities by former Environment Minister John Gormley but that the current minister, Phil Hogan, had done nothing to progress the review.

However, Mr Gilmore dismissed the criticism as a "smokescreen" and said Fianna Fáil was trying to distract public attention from the "hugely embarassing" findings of the Mahon Tribunal.

Mr Gilmore said the review would be completed after the publication of the retail planning guidelines in April and he said Minister Hogan would make a public statement at that time.

Mr Martin accused the Tánaiste of a “whitewash” in his reply, saying the internal review had already been carried out.

Last night, Mr Martin said the party took the findings of the Mahon Report very seriously, and understood the scale of the challenge it faced in rebuilding the public's trust.

Mr Gilmore characterised the tribunal's findings of planning corruption as "overwhelmingly a Fianna Fáil problem".

Meanwhile, former FF councillor Finbarr Hanrahan has resigned from Fianna Fáil following findings against him in the Mahon Report.

All six former politicians who were facing motions of expulsion at Friday's national executive meeting have now resigned from the party.

The only outstanding business for decision at Friday evening's meeting is the proposal to review the structure of the Dublin Central constituency, and to transfer to the party nationally any assets owned by units in the constituency.