Mr. Joe Costello:

I mentioned previously that I, among others, sat on the firearms consultative panel that was in operation a couple of years ago. Much good work was done and there was great progress. It was the first time there was anything like that. It went on for some time.

What strikes me is how much we are talking about the same things as we discussed then. One matter that arose early, when we were doing an outline of a type of wish list, as Mr. Dennehy said, was that we would like to have impartial and objective decisions. We would like to see a centralised system, hopefully, rather than a scaremongering that these are horrible things and why would one want them because they are evil and nasty. As Senator Mulcahy pointed out, changing the appearance of something cosmetically makes no difference to what it does or does not do. It is like changing the colour of one's car.

We really sought to do that and to get that going, but we were told it could not be done. For one reason or another it was shelved. That was a huge loss. It cost the State millions and it cost the citizens of the State an unbelievable amount of money. It created frustration and distrust, which was the most important casualty. Instead of having the Department of Justice and Equality, the Garda and shooters working together, it created the distrust that started to gel. It was a tragedy that it happened. Speaking for myself and my shooting colleagues, any of the stakeholders involved would welcome the opportunity to have an interface like that again.