Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said that people handed down a life sentence should serve it.
During heated exchanges with Opposition deputies, he said: "Unless there are extenuating circumstances, such as old age or infirmity, a life sentence should mean life. This should apply to a person going out with a knife or a gun in their pocket on any night, or who returns home for a gun, or who has a gun in a car, and who blasts an innocent person."
Mr Ahern said that they had moved from seven-year minimum sentences to 13-year minimum sentences. "I believe the parole board view is to go to 15 years. Unless the circumstances are seen differently by the parole board, why should the sentence not be far tougher? If we have mindless people who do not care a damn what they do with anybody's life, we must be tough."
The exchanges followed the condemnation by all sides of the House of the murder of Donna Cleary, Coolock, Dublin, and an expression of sympathy with her relatives.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte accused the Taoiseach of blaming the judiciary. "This is a travesty of the truth and the Taoiseach knows it. There is a mandatory life sentence for murder currently. When the Taoiseach states in reply to Deputy Enda Kenny that a life sentence is for life and should be so, who changes this? The Taoiseach does not, not members of the judiciary. It is an administrative and political decision for early release. It is not a decision of the bench."
Mr Ahern replied: "I did not make any reference, either yesterday or today, to the judiciary. I will not let blatant mistruths go. I will give Deputy Rabbitte the chance to withdraw the statement." He added that when Mr Rabbitte "had an opportunity at the Cabinet table, albeit brief, he cancelled the prison building programme, failed to put even one extra garda on the street and failed to properly resource the Garda".
Mr Rabbitte insisted that he had referred to "exactly the import" of what Mr Ahern said about the judiciary. The spin from the Government, he added, was that judges were somehow responsible for imposing inadequate sentences.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said that Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, who was not present in the House - "he is probably speaking on another radio programme" - had described the shooting as a watershed.
"As usual, it is a watershed for everyone but him and there is no indication that this appalling crime will shock him into action.
"More than a year ago, the Minister correctly identified the extent of gun culture and how cheap life has become. He promised mandatory jail sentences and an amnesty to take firearms out of circulation. Now, one year on, nothing has happened and we are bogged down with the Criminal Justice Bill, which is stuck in committee with more than 100 amendments pending."
Mr Ahern said he could rehearse statistics for last year about the most serious categories of crime, but that would not do a lot for Donna Cleary and her family, or for anybody else who was killed.
"A criminal justice Bill is before the House which can, perhaps, assist in this, but a lot of legislation has already been passed, including sentencing on drug and gun crime." He listed a range of measures included in the Bill.
