Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I am taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

As Deputy Charles Flanagan will appreciate, that Department is at present in the course of a major transformation of the firearms licensing system. It has brought into operation long overdue changes, such as the requirement for referees, provision for background medical checks and standards for the safe keeping of guns in the home for all firearms licence applicants. At the same time, it has given effect to the major policy changes which the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform announced in November 2008, particularly in regard to a handgun ban. The Minister does not pretend that a such major transformation can take place without glitches but he would caution against people characterising the system as being in difficulty when in reality they simply do not accept the decisions which have been made on their applications.

The changes required enormous work and effort behind the scenes both on the legislative side and from the point of view of information technology design and infrastructure, outsourcing of fee collection and production and publication of guidelines. The Department is in effect moving from a regime designed in 1925 to a 2009 licensing system which reflects modern conditions. The new three year licence with outsourced fee collection and licence production will result in a better service to the public and substantial administrative savings to the Garda Síochána. The objective is a careful consideration of each firearms licensing application in accordance with the law.

The Garda Commissioner has produced substantial guidelines to facilitate applicants and these are available on the Garda website along with the application forms and a host of other useful information for licensed firearms owners. The firearms policy unit in Garda headquarters, which was established by the Commissioner in 2008, has done excellent work in ensuring that advice and guidance are available to gardaí on the ground as well as to the shooting associations.

The logistics of moving from one to three year certificates were complicated and to make the changeover work the Commissioner extended existing certificates without charge by between one and ten months. The longest of the extended one year firearm certificates are due to expire on 30 June 2010. The Garda authorities recently ran an advertisement in the national newspapers highlighting the fact all firearms owners who have not yet done so should apply for the new three year certificate if they wish to retain their firearm. The Minister understands that some people who had old guns lying around for years and licensed them annually because it was the easiest thing to do may now be inclined to scrap their firearms rather than meet the requirements of the new more stringent system. Some of these firearms were in such poor condition that they would have been unsafe to fire and it is no bad thing to send them for scrappage. The Minister is not exaggerating when he says that some of the old guns handed in for disposal were held together more by duct tape than by wood and metal.

Due to this response and the restrictions which the Minister has introduced, we can expect to see a drop in the overall number of licensed firearms in the country. Garda statistics show that almost 100,000 applications are on the system, 81,000 certificates have already been granted and the number of refusals stands at approximately 550. A number of appeals are being pursued in the District Court, as provided for by section 15A of the Firearms Act 1925, but I do not propose to comment in detail on these other than to say they represent a small percentage of the overall number of applications for the new three year licence. Some appeals have been successful but others have not. Our law provides for such an appeal system and it would be disingenuous to characterise a variety of judicial decisions as confusing.

The transition phase will be completed in three months time, at which point we will have a better and safer system in which both firearm owners and members of the Garda Síochána are free from the frenzied renewal of certificates every August. Every licensed firearm will be required to be securely stored when not in use. Firearms holders need only to renew every three years and can pay for their certificates at post offices, over the telephone or via the Internet. The system will have much greater transparency and the process for obtaining or renewing a firearms certificate will be clear to prospective applicants.

The Minister took on board the Deputy's suggestion that the legislation should include a provision that the Garda Commissioner submit an annual review of the operation of the Firearms Acts 1925 to 2009 and the Minister shall lay a copy of it before the Oireachtas. It makes sense that we would wait a few months for the completion of the transition phase before taking the opportunity to review the process in the autumn.

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