John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)

Last June I raised the issue of a sixfold increase in the number of licensed handguns in the State. A number of court cases have liberalised the ownership of such guns. The last response from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform in June indicated he would implement the remaining Parts of the Criminal Justice Act as quickly as possible and he said he would bring forward technical amendments to enable their commencement in the criminal justice (miscellaneous provisions) Bill, which he said at the time would be "published in the coming weeks". It has not been published yet. Since then I have been contacted unprompted by senior gardaí in Waterford about this. The Minister is not taking this seriously enough. If he says he will publish legislation on an issue as grave as this, he should do so and he should take it seriously.

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