Mr. Joe Costello:

In response to Deputy Collins, the National Rifle Association of Ireland is based in a range in Offaly at Blueball or midlands range. It is the second largest range in Europe. It was built from our membership fees and moneys and with the work and effort of the members involved.

It is an approved range and has been inspected and approved by the range inspector. We have had engagement with the Department and the Garda and various branches. As I said, we engaged with them on the firearms consultative panel in the past but more than that, we had a pretty good relationship with the Department of Justice and Equality. We put in a submission, in which I was involved, to advance the idea of ammunition reloading in Ireland. After some negotiation and so on, as one can imagine, we were granted that facility. We are currently the only club in Ireland which is allowed to legally reload rifle ammunition. That was done because it is an essential part of our sport. What we do is somewhat like the Formula One of shooting, where little things mean a lot, as the song says. We try to eliminate all the little things - the cumulative errors and so on. If someone who did not know what was involved in that were to watch somebody loading ammunition for a competition, he or she would probably fall asleep before anything happened.

However, we have engaged with the Department of Justice and Equality and the department of explosives extensively and they visited the range several times. We had meetings with them once every three or four weeks and there was somebody on the range. Reloading is a section of the legislation, so I offer an invitation to any member, or all interested members, of the committee to visit and to see the facilities.