The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has said that the widow of Det Garda Jerry McCabe is entitled to be able to trust the Irish Government.
Mr McDowell made his comments in Limerick last night, where he was meeting Progressive Democrat candidates in next month's local elections.
Mrs Anne McCabe is currently awaiting a letter of assurance from the Government, following recent reports that it might release her husband's killers if there was an end to IRA paramilitary activity.
The Minister for Justice said that the matter had to be discussed with Cabinet colleagues, and with the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, before details of the letter to Mrs McCabe could be finalised.
"I do hope to be in a position to communicate with Mrs McCabe because I believe that recent events have been unnecessarily upsetting for her. I believe that she is entitled, as she says herself, to be able to trust the Irish Government and she will be in a position to trust the Government on these matters," said the Minister.
Meanwhile, Mr McDowell reiterated the Government's position on the controversy surrounding the possible early release of the McCabe killers, saying such a deal would not happen while IRA paramilitary activity continued.
"The Government is very clear on this. The killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe were given sentences by the Irish courts and it's the Government's intention that they should serve those sentences. There is no question of their release being used as an inducement or as an appetiser for anybody to change their political stance. The Government has made it clear that while paramilitarism continues there is no question of considering their release."
However, Mr McDowell did not rule out a possible shift in the Government's position if it was presented with a change in a particular set of circumstances.
"If someone wants to come to us and say that paramilitarism is ended, that the IRA's campaign is over and that there is no future for the IRA in the politics of Ireland - in those circumstances I am not going to let historic opportunities slip from my grasp and neither is the Government."
The Minister for Justice denied there was a rift in the Department of Justice on the issue of early release, following an article in the Sunday Independent by the Minister of State for Justice, Mr Willie O'Dea, that said the killers should not get early release under any circumstances.
"I fully accept that Minister Willie O'Dea speaks for many people when he says that they should never be released, and what I'm saying is that they will never be released while paramilitarism continues."