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Crime Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 June 2014

Tuesday, 24 June 2014

Questions (78)

Niall Collins

Question:

78. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the action she will take to tackle gun crime; the number of firearms offences that have been recorded to date this year; the number of successful convictions for firearms offences that have been recorded this year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26698/14]

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Written answers

The House will not need reminding of the consequences of gun crime, and will join with me, I am sure, in expressing our collective outrage at the appalling recent incident which resulted in a child being shot. Our sympathy is with this young boy and his family, and as I outlined to the House last week, An Garda Síochána is determined to bring to justice those involved.

I can also assure the Deputy that gun crime generally is being tackled aggressively by An Garda Síochána by means of a range of targeted and intelligence based operations, often disrupting and preventing incidents before harm is caused, as well as detecting and prosecuting those involved. I recently discussed the challenges presented by this type of crime, and particularly its association with organised crime, with the Acting Commissioner, who outlined the substantial efforts being made by An Garda Síochána to identify and target those involved.

In particular, the 2014 Policing Plan of An Garda Síochána sets outs this continued commitment to confront groups and individuals engaged in criminal activity, including by employing multi-disciplinary approaches and utilising all available resources and legislation. Advanced analytical and intelligence methods are applied, and proactive high-visibility checkpoints, patrols and searches are deployed, coordinated with armed response capacity to ensure that such resources are focused on key locations and periods. In addition to these enforcement measures, An Garda Síochána also engages extensively with communities in a range of fora to address local concerns relating to crime and community safety, including the impact that organised crime can have at a community level. An Garda Síochána also works closely with other law enforcement agencies to tackle the transnational dimension to organised crime, and there are substantial multi-agency operations in place to tackle drug trafficking, as well as other smuggling activity associated with organised crime.

In relation to the statistics requested by the Deputy, as he will be aware, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) is responsible for the production of the official Recorded Crime Statistics and I have asked the CSO to compile and provide the Deputy with the specific statistics he has requested in his question insofar as they are available. What I can tell the House is that the most recent figures, which are for the full year of 2013, show that the number of crimes where a firearm was involved reduced by more than 7%. Total weapons and explosives offences were also down, by nearly 10%. These figures should also be seen in the context of a general reduction in most categories of offences, reflecting well on the work of An Garda Síochána.

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