Minister for Enterprise and Employment Micheál Martin has said a report claiming that he would favour embryo stem-cell research being conducted in the Republic in certain circumstances was taken out of context.
Mr Martin is in Beijing, where he is leading a three-day trade mission to China.
He said he had told the Irish Catholic in an interview that his personal view was that the science was at a very early stage in its development and there was a long way to go before the answers to many basic questions around it emerged.
"But I said that if it emerged in the future that it could be of value in treating very debilitating and chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease or Alzheimer's, then I would have an open mind," he said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Enterprise and Employment in Dublin said yesterday that the official policy in relation to embryo stem-cell research, as set out by the Minister, was that the Government wanted to maintain the position of "ethical subsidiarity".
She said he had said that this meant that Ireland did not tell other countries or seek to influence what other countries did in terms of research programmes and research projects.
In Beijing, Mr Martin said that the Government's position was that "ethical subsidiarity" allowed the State to stop embryo stem-cell research being carried out in Ireland just as it allowed for abortion to be prohibited here. He stressed that the State had no role in determining what happened in other jurisdictions within the EU.
The Republic will be contributing to the next EU research and development fund, FP7, but would not be in a position to prevent some of that money being used to pay for embryo stem-cell research in other member states as it was a European fund.
Mr Martin said the code of medical ethics in force in the Republic already meant that such research could not be carried out here. This meant he had no role in determining whether embryo stem-cell research could be undertaken here.
According to recent reports, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern told Pope Benedict that the Republic intended passing legislation to ban such research. Asked about plans to do this, Mr Martin said he had no knowledge of such proposals.