Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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463. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the numbers of knives seized by An Garda Síochána in 2019 and to date 2020. [43457/20]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that the Garda Commissioner is by law responsible for the management of An Garda Síochána.

However, in order to be of assistance to the Deputy, I have had enquiries made and I am informed by An Garda Síochána that a query was run against the PULSE database on 10 December to identify any object of sub-type ‘knife’ linked as ‘seized’ with any incident reported nationwide since 01/01/2019. All figures are operational so may be liable to change.

The following table displays all nationwide incidents of type described above for the years 2019 (full calendar year) and 2020 YTD (to 10/12/2020).

*Year to 10/12/2020

As one might expect, as our Garda numbers have been increasing, the enforcement numbers for crimes such as possession of weapons or similar offences would also increase.