Minister for Health Mary Harney said that she accepted the Travers report "wholly and entirely".
She said Mr Travers was a highly skilled, professional former civil servant who knew what he was talking about. "I stand over my handling of this issue since October last," she added.
Ms Harney said she had asked for legal advice as soon as the issue was raised in the House by Enda Kenny. "There was a legal issue and I sought advice," she said. "And I acted on legal advice when I received it. I stopped the charges within a day of being told they should stop."
She said she had confirmed her belief that there had been political and public support over many years for the principle that people should make some contribution towards the cost of shelter and maintenance.
Ms Harney said she did not know what the Government would have decided had the information contained in the Travers report been available last December. "It is hypothetical and I cannot speculate," she added. "But I have no doubt that our decision-making process would have been substantially different had we had the full facts then."
Ms Harney said she believed it was relevant that none of the main political parties had insisted, now or back in December, that the policy should be to repay all the amounts back to 1976 and not use the statute of limitation relating to estates.
"This begs the question over what to do about repayments as a legal requirement or as policy choice," she said. "That question confronted us from the start last December. This complex issue can only be addressed with precise information. But, as I have pointed out, the information given to me and to the Government was not 'fit for purpose'."
Answering Opposition questions, Ms Harney said that, as politicians, they all engaged in cat-calls across the floor of the House. "Perhaps we are all subjective to such an extent that when a report does not say what we would like it to say, we are inclined to put things into it that are not there," she added.
The report was clear, Ms Harney said. "It states, for example, that ministers can be faulted for not probing more deeply. However, it continues by observing that these shortcomings were of a scale, substance and order of magnitude considerably less than those of the system of public administration."
Ms Harney said everybody accepted that the situation was a total mess. "The consequences are considerable, involving 315,000 people and going back to 1976," she added. "Some institutions are closed and no records exist. Besides the huge amount of money involved, this issue represents a mammoth task from an administrative and logistical point of view."
Asked about her view of Mr Michael Kelly, she said: "Mr Kelly is a bright, hard-working, committed civil servant."
Ms Harney said that, in any department, a minister was involved in thousands of meetings every year.
"Sometimes one goes to all of the meetings, other times one attends part of the meeting," she said. "Decisions would never be made or actions taken if we were attending meetings all the time. That is not an issue."
