Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 February 2021
741. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Minister for Justice 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]
View answerI 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.
