The high visibility garda presence in Dublin city centre over the last few months will be maintained, the Minister for Justice has said.
It follows a report in The Irish Times that the extra €10m for garda overtime in Dublin, which Minister Helen McEntee announced last summer, is now being used up.
A heightened garda presence was put in place following riots in the city in November, following an attack near a school on Parnell Square East in which a woman and three children were injured.
A five-year-old girl remains in hospital since the 23 November attack.
An initial protest near the scene of the attack escalated causing major disruption in the capital.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, Minister McEntee said Commissioner Drew Harris had assured her that the high visibility presence in Dublin over the last few months will be maintained.
Asked if the policing levels in Dublin will return to the levels of last year, she said the commissioner assured her that whatever resources are needed to ensure the continuation of high visibility policing will be available.
The minister said: "The overtime budget for this year has actually increased by €28m and I have no doubt that a significant portion of that will go to Dublin.
"But whatever resources are needed to make sure that that high visibility presence that we have had for the last number of weeks and months, that that is maintained, I have been assured that that will be the case."
Minister McEntee said that although there will be changes to teams, as there always are within an organisation, the high visibility presence that people have seen over the last few months will be maintained.
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Sinn Féin TD Louise O'Reilly has said there should not be a reliance on garda overtime to police the streets of Dublin adequately.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, she said: "We could argue all day about whether or not it is appropriate or proportionate to be tyring to run An Garda Síochána with that high level of overtime.
"I mean it's not optimum. It was a sticking plaster. There hasn't been the additional recruitment that is necessary to ensure that that can be done."
Ms O'Reilly said the additional overtime should have been followed with additional recruitment, but the Government has failed to hit its recruitment targets and there has not been an increase in the number of gardaí in Dublin city.
Fine Gael Senator Barry Ward disagreed with Ms O' Reilly and said that 280 new gardaí have been assigned to the Dublin region, which is 115 since the middle of December.
"So, there absolutely has been an increase in the gardaí in Dublin," he said.
Stephen Kennedy, Chair of the Aston Quay and Temple Bar Business and Residents Alliance, has said anytime that there is an increased garda presence on the streets of Dublin city, there is almost an immediate reduction in open drug dealing and the anti-social behaviour that goes with it.
Speaking on the same prpgramme, he said: "My own feelings really are that the resources that were committed at the end of last year are the bare minimum that's needed.
"I was really hoping that this would be the starting point in terms of trying to get on top of these issues and on top of the problems in the city centre."
