Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has said there was no question of a cover-up of the circumstances surrounding the murder of Garda Richard Fallon in 1970, and he has ruled out any question of holding a public inquiry into the killing.
The Fallon family has called for a public inquiry into Garda Fallon's murder amid rumours over the years of a cover-up at the highest level relating to the gun used in the killing.
Garda Fallon was killed during a bank raid in Dublin by a paramilitary gang linked to Saor Éire.
The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors said at the weekend that they supported the Fallon family's request for a public hearing, but Mr McDowell yesterday said that he had studied the files at length and he was satisfied that there was no cover-up.
He had spoken to both retired officers and others still in the force and he believed a thorough investigation was carried out, and that contrary to an impression left in a memorandum by the then secretary general at the Department of Justice, Peter Barry, gardaí traced the firearms.
"The truth is the gardaí were aware of the source of the firearms in question, and it was not a conspiracy involving any person at political level," Mr McDowell said. "It was low-life Dublin gangland people who sourced the weapons in Birmingham at the time - there wasn't a political dimension to it."
Mr McDowell said that he and now retired assistant commissioner Tony Hickey had a meeting with a legal representative of the Fallon family and he was satisfied that the explanation given by Mr Hickey at that meeting was true and correct.
"I would say that if anybody read all the files, they would say that it would not be a worthwhile expenditure of public funds to explore the possibility that the firearms came from somewhere else - they didn't - there is no cover-up and there was no cover-up at the time.
"I am absolutely 1,000 per cent satisfied that the explanation former assistant commissioner Tony Hickey gave at that meeting with me and a legal representative of the family is as full an explanation as any inquiry would uncover at this stage and is a true explanation."