Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My party supports the review of the legislation and believes updated legislation will lead to safer communities. We also believe the stakeholders who legally use these firearms need to be consulted properly, however. I welcome that the Minister stated this would happen in her reply. The review must distinguish between those who hold firearms legally and those who engage in criminality. That is an issue which the representative associations have raised.

We heard from the Garda Inspectorate yesterday on the PULSE system. The representative associations dispute the statistical information, or the lack of it, underlying the basis on which the recommendations flow. In a reply to several parliamentary questions, the Minister stated to me that An Garda Síochána advises it is not possible to identify accurately from a central database such as PULSE the number of occasions an unlicensed or licensed firearm was used in the committing of a crime. The reply also stated-----

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