Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has said the budget for tackling organised crime has been cut by more than half.
However, he insisted that when needed, the money would be found for specialist operations and investigations into the activities of criminal gangs.
Commissioner Callinan said €10m would be spent this year on Operation Anvil, set up to target organised crime, down from €21m last year.
He also said the gardaí would continue to target dissident republican groups, whose attacks in Northern Ireland had increased last year by more than 70%.
In particular, the force was focusing on the links between the dissidents and criminal gangs.
The Garda Commissioner said his policing plan was two-pronged - to continue aggressively targeting organised crime and dissident republican activity and to increase community policing designed to stem the recruitment of disaffected or disadvantaged people to criminal gangs and the dissidents.
Mr Callinan said he wanted to make people safe and feel safe, but accepted he would have less resources and personnel with which to do this.
Of the 54 murders last year, 19 were gangland killings of which one in five have so far been solved.
However, gardaí say gangland murders of 2009 continued to be solved in 2010 as the detection rate rose from 29% to 41%.
