Reports that the Irish Daily Star has published topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge have been condemned as motivated by "greed" by St James's Palace.
Despite the palace describing the publication of pictures of Catherine in French magazine Closer as a "grotesque and totally unjustifiable" invasion of privacy, it has now emerged that the paper was running the images in its Republic of Ireland edition.
A spokeswoman for the palace said: "There can be no motivation for this action other than greed."
Irish Daily Star editor Michael O'Kane said the pictures did not feature in the UK editions of his newspaper group and he defended their publication in the Irish Republic.
"The Duchess would be no different to any other celeb pics we would get in, for example Rihanna or Lady Gaga," he said. "She's not the future queen of Ireland so really the only place this is causing fury seems to be in the UK, and they are very very tasteful pictures."
He told the BBC that the images were the type of snaps that might be included among family holidays on continental Europe.
Italian gossip magazine Chi is also understood to be planning a 26-page photo special of the Duke and Duchess sunbathing in the south of France, to run in an edition next week.
St James's Palace has already said the couple will sue the publishers of French Closer magazine, which is run by a different company from the British version of Closer magazine.
Earlier a spokeswoman said they were reviewing what further action might be taken against other publications that might publish the photos.
She said: "We will not be commenting on potential legal action concerning the alleged intended publication of the photos in Italy save to say that all proportionate responses will be kept under review. Any such publication would serve no purpose other than to cause further, entirely unjustifiable upset to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who were enjoying time alone together in the privacy of a relative's home."
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