The new Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan, has paid tribute to his predecessor, Michael McDowell, describing him as "a very great minister".
He said "when history is written it will be shown how strong he was in protecting the institutions of the State and ensuring that the settlement of the difficulties in Northern Ireland would not in any way compromise what we have built up in this part of Ireland".
Mr Lenihan was speaking on Saturday after his first public engagement as Minister for Justice at the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, where he attended a graduation ceremony for 39 members of the Garda Reserve.
Mr Lenihan said: "In matters of political style I am very different, but I'm not sure that I'll be that different from him on the substance of what has to be done in the department".
He praised Mr McDowell's "very hard work and devotion" to enacting legislation, securing additional staff and undertaking a new prison-building programme.
Mr Lenihan's two "crucial priorities" as Minister will be "to maintain a very tough stance on criminal behaviour and gangland activities", and to implement systems and procedures for immigration, naturalisation and asylum which are "carefully laid down and monitored".
He announced that the new Government will introduce a Victims Support Agency "to champion the rights of victims of crime" and ensure they "have a voice and will be heard in our criminal justice system". The new agency will be "underpinned by legislation in due course".
He again confirmed the Government's commitment to the Garda Reserve which is "recruiting at the rate of 50 volunteers a month" and said membership of the full-time Garda force would reach 15,000 by 2010, rising to 16,000 by 2012. The Minister said it would be "difficult" to hold the proposed referendum on children's rights this year because more time was needed for "a considered, detailed debate" and the need for input from a number of Government departments.
He said the Opposition parties, who had been "a little suspicious that they would be bounced into a pre-election referendum", are now "much more positive about the proposals". Mr Lenihan also confirmed that laws governing same-sex "full civil partnerships" will be introduced "in the lifetime of the Government". He said under the programme for government "that is what is agreed between the parties".
On what he called "a very proud day", he recalled that his late father, Brian, had also served as Minister for Justice (1964-1967) and revealed his family's "long association with An Garda Síochána. His maternal grandfather, Joe Devine, "was a founding member of the force who served in various parts of Ireland and rose to the rank of chief superintendent".
The Minister presented certificates to new members of the Garda Reserve and praised their "idealism and commitment".
They include Brendan Owens (31), an engineer from Wexford who works in Galway and hopes the experience will give him "an opportunity to look into the force" which he is considering joining full-time; John Murray (43), a computer network engineer from Tralee, who wants "to give something back to the community"; and Lei Yu (25) from Rathmines, Dublin, who works as an "international officer in Portobello College" and moved to Ireland from China six years ago.
Supt Simon O'Connor said there are now "117 reserves on the ground and a further 73 in training".
The Government target is a Garda Reserve of 1,500 members.