The Taoiseach maintained yesterday that there was no question of crime being out of the control but Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny accused the Government of being completely out of touch with what was happening in communities all over the country.
Speaking to journalists in Birr, Co Offaly, Mr Ahern said it was always disappointing when the level of crime went up. "We are now up to 14,000 gardaí, we have put in huge resources in terms of the work we have done in the stations," he said.
"We have a huge detection rate and are still getting a lot of very good prosecutions. In the murder last week, I don't want to say anything about that, but the people were apprehended and the course of justice will take its place," he said.
"We are having a lot of success in this area but we are dealing with very, very vicious people and that's what we are having to contend with. The money in drugs nowadays is just very attractive and it attracts a very, very difficult criminal element which the gardaí now have to face up to and fight," said Mr Ahern.
He said the Government had changed the position on murder where people used to get out after seven years on the recommendation of the Parole Board. "Now it's up to 13 and I understand the Parole Board is going to move that out to 15 years," he said.
"The Criminal Justice Bill will be brought in shortly and there will be a lot of tough measures in that," he added.
However, Mr Kenny maintained that the Government had abandoned some communities.
"I think that the first thing that should happen is that the Minister for Justice should leave aside his megaphone and get down to serious action in respect of the gun culture and lawlessness which is now endemic in some of our suburbs in some of our cities and is driven on by greed, by lawlessness and by the cocaine epidemic that is sweeping the country."
Speaking on RTÉ radio's This Week programme, Mr Kenny said that during Mr McDowell's term as Minister 500,000 headline crimes will have been committed by next year. "The litmus test for this Ministry and for this Government is 'are the people safer on the streets and safer in their homes than they were previously?' The answer clearly is no."
Mr Kenny said that if the will was there the Government could take on the drugs barons as the last Fine Gael-led government had done after the murder of Veronica Guerin.