Written answers

Wednesday, 24 February 2021

Department of Justice and Equality

Crime Data

Photo of Cian O'CallaghanCian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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741. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of convictions in the courts from 2010, by year in tabular form for possession of a knife or other weapons; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10303/21]

Photo of James BrowneJames Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I have requested the number of knife crime convictions in each of the years 2010 to 2020 from the Courts Service, and I am advised that there are no separate code for various categories of knife crime, the code supplied to the Courts Service by An Garda Síochána includes knives or other articles which could include screwdrivers, knuckledusters, guns etc.

The following table sets out the number of convictions and number of persons convicted for Possession of Knives & other Articles under Section 9(1) Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act, 1990.

Year No of convictions No of Persons convicted
2010 716 646
2011 701 622
2012 564 509
2013 525 478
2014 508 451
2015 467 422
2016 429 390
2017 466 417
2018 548 482
2019 593 513
2020 490 434

The following table sets out the number of convictions and number of persons convicted for Possession of Flick-Knife under Section 9(4) Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act, 1990.

Year No of convictions No of Persons convicted
2010 72 70
2011 79 75
2012 61 59
2013 61 56
2014 61 59
2015 55 53
2016 54 53
2017 44 43
2018 53 53
2019 59 57
2020 44 42

The Deputy should note that the Courts Service can only provide data in relation to where offence codes provided on the system were used by prosecutors. Prosecutors may have used uncoded free text offences and any such offences would not be included in the data provided in the tables above. Furthermore, a person may be convicted for both offences and will appear more than once on the report.

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