The gangland situation is no better or worse than it was when Veronica Guerin was killed 10 years ago, the Minister for Justice said on the crime reporter's anniversary yesterday.
Michael McDowell said he did not accept that he had "taken his eye off the ball" on organised crime and said gardaí had "record resources" to tackle it.
"I don't accept that things are better or worse. I think that the Gilligan gang was equally ruthless 10 years ago."
He said the "Mr Bigs" were being "cut down but still they are equally savage and equally merciless with each other and nobody should be under any illusions in relation to that".
Ms Guerin's 10th anniversary was marked last night with a minute's silence at the scene of her murder on the Naas Road on the outskirts of Dublin.
The Sunday Independent reporter was shot dead as she waited at traffic lights near Newlands Cross. She had been writing extensively on drug barons and organised crime.
Brian Meehan was convicted of her murder in 1999, after the Special Criminal Court heard he had driven the motorbike which carried the gunman. Eugene Patrick "Dutchy" Holland, who was named by a garda in court as the man who fired the bullets that killed Ms Guerin, was released earlier this year after serving a sentence for drug dealing.
Mr McDowell said he was "absolutely certain" that the gardaí had a good strategy to deal with organised crime "and that they will have more successes in the future".
He pointed to the "magnificent achievement" of gardaí in the weekend seizure of €8 million worth of heroin. These drugs were "about to be flooded into the market and into the veins of young Irish kids by thugs.
"They found their armoury, they found a number of people who are obviously hell bent on destruction, not merely of the kids who use the heroin but also of anybody who would get in their way."
Mr McDowell was speaking at the relaunch of the Probation Service yesterday. As outlined in this newspaper yesterday, the plan includes a new young persons' probation service, greater use of restorative justice and new management structures. He said the plan would "improve and dramatically entrench in the Irish criminal justice system the whole principle of probation".
He praised people who did voluntary work with young offenders and called on more people to get involved. "Help those who are patriotic enough to help their own communities," he said. "Don't sit and complain. Get out and help."
The new-look Probation Service was praised by Impact, the union representing 365 probation staff. Impact official Ray Ryan said the Probation Service had a "much better record" than prison in reducing reoffending rates "even though it costs up to 20 times more to keep a person in jail".
