Six hundred new gardaí will be recruited every year from 2005, the Minister for Justice has told the Dáil.
The Minister also insisted that there was "no grand plan to close Garda stations" and he said that he had secured an extra €91 million on top of the €954 million in Exchequer spending for the Garda for this year.
In addition, some €24 million would be spent on various Garda building projects this year.
Mr McDowell said that "there will be logistical challenges, but the fact is that the commitment will be met by making whatever changes are necessary".
He told the House that Templemore, the Garda training college "simply has to be used more intensively to give effect to the requirement for new numbers". He spoke on Monday to the Garda Commissioner about the "necessity to get more numbers through Templemore and I believe it can be done and it will be done".
Mr McDowell insisted that "a commitment is a commitment and will be delivered on", in increasing the numbers.
Mr McDowell was speaking during a Fine Gael private members' debate in which the party demanded that the Government indicate how its commitment in the Programme for Government to increase Garda numbers by 2,000 would be met.
The Minister said that if Tiger Woods had a clear line of vision and "was to drive from Stephen's Green he could hit Pearse Street, Kevin Street, Harcourt Street and Harcourt Square Garda stations".
He did not think this was a "satisfactory state of affairs" because the "changing population requires different solutions".
He said the Kevin Street station was housed in the remains of a mediaeval palace and the Harcourt Terrace station, combined with an old butter testing station, "must be one of the most valuable sites" in the city centre and was only two minutes walk or less from Harcourt Square station which was Garda headquarters.
He said that the objective of reduced public opening hours at Garda stations was to "get gardaí out from behind public counters at times when there is little demand for their services, and out onto the beat on the streets of the city where they are needed".
He said the Strategic Management Initiative (SMI) report, on the use of Garda resources, had estimated that "these proposals to change the opening hours of public offices in about a dozen stations in the Metropolitan Region could release the equivalent of 240 full-time gardaí and sergeants onto the streets at nights when their visible presence will assist in the prevention of crime".
