Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I support the amendment and welcome the Minister's response to it. I propose to cite an example to highlight the effects of these provisions. The Minister or his officials will have received a torrent of correspondence from those engaged in the airsoft sport. I did not know what the sport entailed, but its representatives explained it to me in their own terms when they visited me. They are terrified by sections 9G and 9H which I suspect we will not reach. These sections essentially provide that, on the word of the Garda Commissioner, sales of certain realistic initiation firearms would be restricted from a specified date. The representative groups argue that if there is a sudden outbreak of public frenzy, as occurs from time to time, and pressure were to be exerted on the Minister to shut down the airsoft sport, it would have calamitous implications for those who earn their living from the airsoft sport because of the significant time lag between the importation of these types of firearms and their sale and disposal in this jurisdiction. They could be left with an expensive consignment on the high seas if the sport were to be shut down, as the representatives graphically put it, after one Joe Duffy show. Can the Minister give any assurance to the people concerned? While the Bill provides for an annual review, does the Minister envisage circumstances in which the fear of this group would be realised and the sport shut down on a whim, leaving them holding the baby, so to speak, or does he regard this fear as a misapprehension and without foundation? I am informed airsoft is a growing sport.

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