John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

That is his initial point and I will come to it in a few minutes. The Minister also said that any basic research on practical shooting will see that it considers itself an extreme sport. In his opening response, the Minister also said that this is an imported gun culture and has nothing to offer Irish society. The Senators said that experts attached to the Olympic movement have no difficulty with this matter. However, I read the position of Mr. Horst Schreiber, the general secretary of the International Shooting Sports Federation in 2006, which shows the contradictory position that has entered this debate. The ISSF is a member of the International Olympic Committee and is in charge of Olympic shooting events. It does not and will not support IPSC shooting in any form. The ISSF's position was forcefully made by the secretary general at the 2006 assembly of the General Association of International Sports Federations where an application for membership was made by the IPSC.

I do not wish to waste Senators' time by going into long quotations, but I will give the drift of the thinking at that time. The general secretary told delegates that the ISSF firmly believed that IPSC shooting events could not be recognised as sports shooting events because they too closely resembled combat, police and personal defence training to be considered as sports within the Olympic sports community. I am trying to tease out the notion of whether it is a sport and, as part of my opening position, I must rely on the opinion of an authority such as the general secretary of the ISSF who does not recognise practical shooting as a sport within the Olympic sports community. He said that targets should not symbolise the killing or destruction of human beings or animals. The priority of the IPSC's activities is that of technical training and competitive firearms, rather than sport. In these competitions points are awarded not just on the accuracy of the participant, but also on the power of the handgun used. Although I am not an expert in this area, I am purely trying to tease out the best response.