Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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780. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons charged with knife crimes in 2020; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16402/21]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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781. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of persons convicted of knife crimes in 2020; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16403/21]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 780 and 781 together.

Knife crime is a serious issue across many jurisdictions. The mission of An Garda Síochána is ‘Keeping People Safe’ and whilst this is a simple message, it is a very deep one, and An Garda Síochána keep policing practices and strategies under review with a view to providing the best possible responses.

The Deputy will be aware that under my recently published Justice Plan 2021, my Department will review existing Garda powers in relation to dangerous weapons, including knives, to ensure they have the necessary legal tools to protect our communities.

We will also focus on analysing existing data, as well as developing new sources of data, and looking at international best practice in this area.

I have contacted both An Garda Síochána and the Courts Service for the information requested by the Deputy and have been advised of the following:

In relation to the number of persons charged for knife crimes, a search of the PULSE database was conducted on 25 March 2021 to identify any charge or summons created nationwide during 2020 whereby the associated legislative act was the ‘Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act 1990’ and the offence wording referred to Section 9(1) or Section 9(4) of that Act. The total count of unique charges and summonses created under each heading is as follows:

The total number of charges/summons issued for 2020 is 2,286.

It should be noted that these statistics are taken from PULSE as of 05:00 on 25March 2021 and that they are operational data and liable to change. Multiple charges or summonses may be issued for incidents, for example, if there are multiple offenders or multiple categories of charges.

In relation to the number of convictions for the offences listed above, I have been advised by the Courts Service that the following, provisional, figures are available:

The Courts Service have provided reports on the number of convictions secured and the number of persons convicted of the offences listed. The Courts Service have no separate code for various categories of knife crime. The codes utilised by Courts Service are based on those used by An Garda Síochána and includes knives or other articles which could include screwdrivers, knuckledusters, guns etc.

Report 1: The number of convictions & number of persons convicted for Possession of Knives & other Articles. Section 9(1) Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act, 1990

Report 2: The number of convictions & number of persons convicted for Possession of Flick-Knife. Section 9(4) Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act, 1990.

Report 1

Report 2

Note 1: Courts 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.

Note 2: A person may be convicted for both offences and will appear more than once on the report

For the Deputy's information, conviction data supplied by the Courts is provisional and subject to change pending publication of the Courts Service Annual Report for 2020 later in the year.

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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782. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of homicides involving a knife that were recorded by An Garda Síochána in each of the years 2015 to 2020; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16404/21]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will appreciate, the Garda Commissioner is responsible under the Garda Síochána Act 2005 for the management and administration of Garda business. This includes the administration of the PULSE system. As Minister I have no role in these operational matters.

I have requested a report on the information required by the Deputy and have been advised by the Garda authorities that in relation to the information requested, it is not possible to provide an answer.

To obtain the information requested would require a significant effort to examine individual homicide incidents (which include a number of incident types) in order to determine which involved the use of a knife, which would represent a significant expenditure of Garda time and resources.

I have been advised that this is due to the recording of cases involving the use of knives on PULSE, including cases where there was possession of a knife, but it was used to threaten rather than injure. It would not therefore be possible to rely on this information alone to identify where the death occurred as a result of injuries sustained from a knife. Certain information may also only be recorded in investigation files and not within the PULSE narrative, which would not be captured in a search described above of PULSE.

Additionally, as has been noted by the Policing Authority, whilst progress has been made on work arising from the Homicide Investigation Review Team (HIRT), this remains on-going in relation to changes to investigative policies and procedures. The work of the HIRT covered some but not all of the years included in the query and this would affect the comparability of the data over the time period requested.