Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said Ireland will continue to press for greater spending flexibility at the next budget, saying that he had raised the issue with the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker during a visit to Brussels on 5 February.
Mr Kenny also said the Government hoped to reduce the tax burden in a way that would benefit people "early next year".
Speaking following a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, Mr Kenny said the Government was not questioning EU rules, but how they were "interpreted."
"We're not questioning the European rules," he told reporters. "Technical people will discuss the interpretation of the rules as to how best we can secure our recovery."
On 9 and 10 March Minister for Finance Michael Noonan formally raised the issue at meetings of EU and eurozone finance ministers who will have the final say on any flexibility shown to the Government.
The Government wants to be allowed to spend more in October's budget, despite technical constraints imposed by EU rules.
Those constraints are enshrined in rules designed to prevent member states breaching EU deficit limits.
Later this year Ireland will enter the so-called "preventive" arm of the Excessive Deficit Procedure, one of the key rules governing the single currency.
Under that procedure Ireland can technically not increase spending by more than it's growth level.
However, the growth level used is averaged over 10 years, and so will come in at 0.6%.
The Government is arguing that 0.6% is not a realistic reflection of current growth rates, and that the rules should be interpreted differently.
"Given the fact that we're in a very different position than we were four years ago, [we want to see] how best can we interpret those rules with the European Commission to help with [the] recovery," Mr Kenny said.
"You don't want an interpretation of the rules that doesn't reflect the growing economic strength of the country."
However, EU sources have cautioned that the Stability and Growth Pact rules need to be applied, and that the Irish government itself - along with others - had drawn up those rules at the inception of the euro.
One source also said that if Ireland sought flexibility on those rules "it would open a Pandora's Box."
However, Mr Kenny said he had raised the issue when he met Mr Juncker in February.
"I raised this specifically with President Juncker when I came out to Brussels... He's well aware of it," he said.
The Taoiseach said he hoped there would be tax cuts later in the year.
"We'll have the spring economic forecast at the end of April, we'll have a public consultation with the different sectors, we'll have the budget in October and hopefully we can continue to reduce the taxation burden so that people can at the beginning of next year will continue to see another modest increase in their take-home pay.
"But it's to be very clear, that we are never going back, we are not going back to what got us into that mess in the first place."
Mr Kenny was speaking at the end of a summit dominated by Greece and a simmering disagreement over what reforms the Greek government would implement and when in order to qualify for desperately needed bailout cash.
He said he had advised the new Greek leader Alexis Tsipras of the approach Ireland took when the Troika of EU-IMF officials arrived in Dublin in 2010.
"The Troika came in November 2010. The new Government was elected early in the new year, it had to deal with a situation which was de facto in existence.
"But the fact is that the minister for finance and the minister for public expenditure actually built a connection with the Troika...and we decided not to increase income tax, not to tax employment, not to reduce basic social protection.
"Where a proposal was put on the table by the Troika Ireland made a different proposition, and the outstanding one clearly was the reduction in VAT from 13.5% to 9% for the hospitality sector, which was paid for by imposition of a pension levy.
"But that stabilised the industry and created 30,000 new jobs."
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