The minister made that statement on 22 November 2004, just days after 23-year-old Paul Cunningham was murdered in a gangland killing in Mulhuddart in west Dublin. But since then, 28 people have been killed in gangland-style killings across the country. What has Michael McDowell said since becoming minister? Has there been any change?

2003 Father of two Kieran Keane, 36, was shot dead on 29 January 2003 in the gateway of a house in the townland of Drombanna, about three miles east of Limerick. Keane was a drug dealer and was involved in the feud in the city.

In response to Keane's murder, McDowell said: "I am absolutely satisfied that the necessary resources have been directed towards these crimes. I have reinforced my willingness to pursue any other measure that would assist the gardai. Just as no one is above the law, nobody is beneath the law either. Because somebody may be associated with some group or organisation it does not mean their life is cheaper in the eyes of the law."

2004 On 3 April 2004, a 65-year-old pensioner, Joan Casey, was shot dead in her home at Avonbeg Park, Tallaght, in Dublin. Casey was a daily mass-goer who was active in her community. Gardai are certain she was not the intended target of the killers. Conor Grogan, 25, of Avonbeg Park and Timothy Rattigan, 25, of St Dominic's Terrace, Tallaght, were charged with her murder.

Days after the murder, McDowell warned that people in the drug and firearm trades must realise the full force of the law would be brought to bear on them. He said gardai were winning the war on drugs, with an increase in the number of drug seizures. "On the other hand, there is a very determined effort on the part of drug dealers to supply these goods of death to vulnerable and marginalised people right across Ireland, " he said. "We can't have a situation where there aren't deterrent sentences. Those who are engaged in this trade, whether they are using firearms or in possession of significant amounts of drugs, must appreciate that the full force of the law will be brought down upon them."

2005 (1) Drug trafficker Terry Dunleavy was ambushed as he walked into Croke Villas flats in Ballybough in Dublin's north inner city on 14 April 2005. He was shot dead in the third gangland-style murder in 10 days (Joseph Rafferty and Jimmy Curran were the other two murder victims) and his death provoked calls for the justice minister to take tougher action to curb the re-emergence of gun culture.

McDowell said he intended to crack down on gun violence by introducing legislation imposing a minimum sentence of 10 years for illegal possession of firearms. He repeated his view that Ireland is one of the world's safest places in terms of the incidence of murder, despite the spate of killings. He added that while he condemned the murder, it was linked to the drugs trade. "These people deal in death day in, day out. They tend to respond to their rivals by handing out death sentences."

2005 (2) Former gang leader Mark Glennon, 32, was shot dead in Blanchardstown in west Dublin as a result of an ongoing dispute with rival criminal factions on 7 September last year. Glennon had been living in Spain but returned to Ireland following the murder of his younger brother Andrew the previous April. The day after the killing, McDowell rejected claims that he failed to provide adequate community policing in west Dublin.

"Operation Anvil is an operation which is highly-resourced. Never has any government put as many resources into this area and I have given the garda commissioner every single item of support he has asked for. There have been a lot of concrete results already: a great number of firearms have been seized, a huge number of arrests and searches have been made. There have been spectacular successes on many fronts in relation to cracking open the drugs trade in Dublin.

"In west Co Dublin there has never been as much garda activity, there have never been as many resources and I have given Commissioner Conroy every last cent that he's asked for in order to pay for this elevated and very serious garda operation targeted at this serious threat to the lives of ordinary people."

2005 (3) Darren Geoghegan, 26, and Gavin Byrne, 30, from Drimnagh in Dublin were both shot dead after the car they were sitting in was ambushed in Firhouse on 13 November last year. Both men were known to have been involved in a four-year turf war between two feuding gangs on the southside of the capital. The day after the double killing, McDowell rejected the suggestion that gangland killings were "spiralling out of control". He claimed that more lives would have been lost if the gardai had not put a lot of resources into Operation Anvil, which was targeted at criminal gangs.

"The latest deaths were not for the want of the gardai doing their level best to prevent it and supplying huge resources . . . record resources . . . to try and stop it from happening."

Geoghegan and Byrne's deaths brought to 17 the number of gangland killings at that time in 2005, which was more than twice the number in 2004.

McDowell attributed the deaths to "two groups in particular who are engaged in a battle to control cocaine and other drug supplies in Dublin, and they are willing to use any method whatsoever to bring about superiority over the other".

2006 After Donna Cleary was killed when gunmen fired shots into a house in Coolock, Dublin, last Sunday morning, Minister McDowell claimed the killing marked "a watershed" for Irish society.

"I believe that everybody in Ireland, be they an elected politician, an ordinary citizen, a member of the judiciary, members of law enforcement agencies, anybody who reflects on what happened must realise this is a watershed point, " he said.

"It has been said in the past that given the amount of firearms in circulation, eventually somebody who was totally innocent was going to get caught up in the crossfire. Here it has arrived.

I regard it now as a watershed point for all our social thinking on these matters, " McDowell continued.

Following criticism of the length of prison sentences for convicted murderers, McDowell defended the judicial system.

He insisted that he could not revise the entire penal system following the murder of one citizen, "no matter how awful or grotesque".