Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

I referred to the Minister's knife awareness campaign before the debate adjourned, which was announced last February with a great fanfare of publicity, a budget of €200,000, a promise of a series of road shows, schools visits, and a nationwide advertising campaign. As part of the campaign, the Minister promised to build a presence on the social networking sites. This was the new message delivery approach from the Minister, but it has failed. The campaign's Bebo site has been viewed only 329 times since January and not one person engaged in the on-line poll. The campaign's Facebook site has 39 members, while the campaign on Twitter has a following of 16 members. There are 170,000 people in this country aged between 18 and 20. The dedicated campaign website www.howbigdoyoufeel.ie has not been updated and only refers to one public meeting that took place before the Minister even launched the campaign. The social networking sites reveal no details of the public meetings, no details of the road shows, and it would appear that no campaigning has taken place at all. Community gardaí could be working on this issue on the ground, but the national campaign is not working, even though it needs to be to enforce the seriousness of knife crime. This is an area where the Minister has not shown himself to be proactive. There has been total failure to meet the target audience, and a form of action is needed to address the sharp rise in knife crime.

I am pleased the Minister has finally decided to outlaw the use of the samurai sword, which is a vicious implement. I cannot think of any other reason that a samurai sword would be brandished, other than to inflict injury on individuals. The swords are used as a macho badge of honour by males in this city and beyond. It is still possible to walk into a shop in this city, purchase a samurai sword and any array of deadly weapons for less than €100. The easy availability of these swords has facilitated some vicious crimes in recent years. One example was the brutal attack in a Finglas pub in 2008, when a man's hand was sliced off in full view of the other customers.

Section 18 deals with the European arrest warrant, and it makes provision for arrest without warrant. If I understand it correctly, this provision will only become operational once the Schengen information system is put in place. It may be some time before this occurs. An important aspect of the Bill is the provision that allows the Garda Síochána the power to take fingerprints, photographs, and palm prints of persons arrested for comparison purposes with the European arrest warrant. Until now, the Garda Síochána could not do this and it will make the process more efficient. It is important that while the changes may enhance the operation of the European arrest warrant regime, we need at the same time to safeguard the rights of people whose surrender is sought on foot of the warrant.

Part 3 deals with the Schengen information system. Can the Minister advise us on our involvement in this? The European Commission indicated in 2007 that the central system would be ready by the end of 2008, but we are now mid-way into 2009. I know further issues emerged that need to be addressed before the system can become operational, but much of this Bill is dependent on the operation of the Schengen information system and our involvement therein. I would have thought that central to this involvement is the setting up of the DNA database here, which will be a key factor in improving the abysmal conviction rate in this country for serious crime. It is fundamental that all member states of the EU should maintain a DNA database and participate in sharing information on this. The Minister has indicated his intention to publish the legislation during this session, and I look forward to it. However, as in the Thornton Hall debacle, there are cost implications here. For example, how prepared is our "Pulse" system for participation in such an EU friendly database?

There are additional provisions in the Bill that I will not go into. This debate was scheduled to start earlier and there is further justice legislation to be dealt with, so I will come back to these issues on Committee Stage. They include the matter of firearms dealers with valid tax clearance certificates, the issue of imitation guns and the restriction of imitation sporting guns by using colour codes. I notice the Minister appears to have changed his mind on the issue of credit card skimming.

I welcome this Bill. The most controversial aspect is related to the handgun issue. It is important that we acknowledge that there is a fairly rigorous regime in place already for the sporting use of such guns. When the Minister speaks of handgun culture and avoiding a Dunblane type situation here, he needs to acknowledge that there is a fairly secure regime already in operation and that genuine sports shooters acknowledge that there must be a robust licensing system in place for club membership rules. A regime can be put together that is transparent and subject to appropriate Garda vetting and examination. I look forward to resuming the debate on these matters on Committee Stage.

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