Firearms law in Ireland is currently spread across 19 Acts, 2 EU directives and well over 60 Statutory Instruments, before case law and the Garda Commissioner’s guidelines are taken into account. It is estimated that fewer than two dozen people in the state have a working understanding of Irish firearms law as a result of this.

Since 2006 – since which time three acts, approximately twenty statutory instruments and an EU directive have been added – the Law Reform Commission has been calling for a restatement of the Firearms Act to simplify this situation. High Court Justice Peter Charleton has stated, in McCarron-v-Kearney, “the piecemeal spreading over multiple pieces of legislation of the statutory rules for the control of firearms is undesirable. Codification in that area is almost as pressing a need as it is in the area of sexual violence.”

Since 2006, an expert panel has existed, consisting of representatives of the target shooting and hunting community, their insurers, the firearm dealers trade, the Gardai, the Department of Sport, and chaired by the Department of Justice. This panel, the Firearms Consultation Panel, has advised on technical aspects of firearms practice and how that practice and firearms legislation can best coexist. However that Panel’s remit was only to oversee the implementation of the 2006 and 2009 acts and as such is now coming to a close.

We, the undersigned, wish to call upon the Minister for Justice to review the Firearms Act and the Law Reform Commission’s call for a restatement of that Act, and to extend the remit of the Firearms Consultation Panel to become a permanent advisory panel to the Firearms Unit of the Department of Justice. We believe that the current state of affairs with regard to firearms legislation in Ireland is unacceptably complex and that dismissing the Firearms Consultation Panel at this time would be a significant mistake in light of that complexity and the urgent need to address it.

Click here to sign the petition

Make firearms panel a permanent body

 Tuesday, June 21, 2011

OVER the next 10 days, we will see several target shooting competitions being run in Ireland, from club level matches, to national level matches, to an enormous international shooting competition (the Creedmoor Cup, last held in Ireland in 1875) and the Irish team and their fans and spectators will also be representing Ireland in the Olympic target shooting world cup in Munich.

These sportsmen and sportswomen achieve what they do despite the many draconian obstacles put in their path by the current Firearms Act, a body of Irish law which is so poorly compiled that the Law Reform Commission has been calling for its overhaul since 2006.

At most only one or two dozen people in the entire state are familiar with the entire body of Irish firearms law because it is made up of 18 separate acts, two EU directives and over 60 statutory instruments.

Might I suggest to the Minister for Justice that instead of winding up the Firearms Consultation Panel — the body of experts from all fields who advise the Minister on firearms legislation — he instead make it a permanent body and undertake to carry out the Law Reform Commission’s recommended overhaul of the act, and thus make it harder for criminals to obtain firearms instead of the current situation where criminals find it easy to get weapons but Olympic athletes find it exceptionally hard to get sports equipment?

Mark Dennehy

Read more: http://examiner.ie/opinion/letters/make-firearms-panel-a-permanent-body-158420.html#ixzz1Prl3oNyB

As a result of this, whether the sporting body in question is a club or a body higher up the administration chain, there are often many grants available from both public and private sources. These grants not only support local and regional clubs in their chosen sports; they also support the National Governing Bodies of those sports as not all sports earn (or are able to earn) sufficient amounts to support their top level administration in the way that (for example) the GAA can. These top level administrative grants cover basic running costs, training, developmental work, specific sporting projects and so forth and are on the whole a good thing.

In Ireland at the moment, two shooting bodies are eligible for these grants, which are administered by the Irish Sports Council (ISC), and one more is applying for eligibility (this is not a secret). The two recognised bodies are the Irish Clay Pigeon Shooting Association (ICPSA), who administer clay pigeon shooting; and the Shooting Sports Association of Ireland (SSAI), who administer non-Olympic rifle and pistol target shooting; and the body applying for recognition is the National Target Shooting Association (NTSA), who administer Olympic rifle and pistol target shooting.

Obviously, these are public monies being distributed, and as such, levels of oversight are required and facilitated by an application process administered by the Irish Sports Council. Every year, they compile a list of eligible bodies and send those bodies an application form to complete listing off how much money they want, what they want it for, and how they spent the last grant they received (this is obviously a very short summary of the form; it is far more formal and expansive than this, but this does capture the gist of it). Delays in this process can and do arise owing to paperwork issues and so forth, and these are resolved through dialogue between the Irish Sports Council and the Body in question. Since dialogue is a necessary part of the process, each body must nominate a contact point. This is all standard for such matters.

Thus, which this background in place, let us consider a recent discrepancy in the application process.

As regular readers have already heard, there was recently a Questions and Answers session held in public by the SSAI Chairman, mainly (though not exclusively) for members of the National Association of Sporting Rifle and Pistol Clubs (NASRPC). Amongst the many complaints and criticisms worded in question form at that meeting in early October, there was a long discussion of the Irish Sports Council grant to the SSAI. It was explained, at some length but without naming names, that due to a failure of a previous committee to keep adequate records of how one aspect of the funding from the Irish Sports Council had been used, there was an indefinite delay on further funding for the Irish Sports Council until such time as the paperwork was in order once more.

This prompted much noise and heat (if very little light) from the members of the audience, whose National Governing Body, the NASRPC – as an affiliated member of the SSAI – derived much of its annual funding from the Irish Sports Council grant. The mechanism for this was simple in nature – each affiliated member of the SSAI prepared a grant application and forwarded this to the SSAI committee, who collated these applications into a single composite document and forwarded it to the Irish Sports Council for consideration. With the Irish Sports Council grant on hold therefore, the NASRPC could not obtain monies through this route. It was spelled out  in no uncertain terms that while this was unfortunate and a resolution was being sought with vigour, the problem had been caused during the tenure of the previous SSAI committee, who were now the loudest complainants from the NASRPC and who indeed held committee posts within the NASRPC. The SSAI undertook to continue to work on the problem, and the matter appeared to rest at that point.

However, a recent Freedom of Information request made to the Irish Sports Council turned up a very unusual document, namely an application made to the Irish Sports Council by the SSAI in November 2010 – a month after the meeting where it was publicly stated that the SSAI would not be eligible for an Irish Sports Council grant for several more months. It was curious that they would have submitted an application so quickly given the scale of the problem being dealt with; and even more so that they would have had time to solicit and receive grant application submissions from each of its affiliated members; the time this task takes each year has traditionally been far longer than this.

Upon further careful reading of the application, some puzzling inconsistencies jump out. The application in full is attached at the bottom of this entry (after the link), but for our purposes we can examine just the two relevant pages in detail. Looking first at the contacts page, the inconsistency is immediately obvious:

You will, I trust, forgive the redaction of personal addresses, but matters of personal security should be kept in mind here.

For those who have not spotted it yet, the inconsistency lies in the stated Contact for ISC person of Patrick Herlihy. Mr. Herlihy is not the designated contact point for the Irish Sports Council to the SSAI, that would be the Chairman of the SSAI, Joe Costello. This error seems most unusual – and indeed, the Irish Sports Council though so too and rejected the application for that reason (as well as some others), stating that if the contact point was to be changed to Mr.Herlihy, then some documentation approving that change would be required from Mr.Costello (for obvious reasons – otherwise any person could submit, for example, a claim for thousands of euro from the GAA grant and cite themselves as the contact point for verification of this claim; a situation with very obvious defects from the point of view of responsibly distributing public monies).

The inconsistency becomes more obvious on the signature page of the document:

The puzzling point here was the question of why, on a form of some importance and consequence, filed well ahead of schedule with the Irish Sports Council, were the signatories the Public Relations Officer and the Treasurer, instead of the Chairman and the Secretary or the Treasurer, as was normal in such cases?

Subsequent inquiries provided resolution to this puzzle – it transpired that the document had in fact been prepared, signed and sent to the Irish Sports Council without the prior authorisation of the SSAI. No SSAI board meeting had approved the document, nor had the Chairman been made aware of it prior to its dispatch despite being the designated SSAI contact point for the ISC.

An uncharitable mind might use ugly words to describe such an act.

Perhaps we could be charitable and recall the adage that one should never attribute to malice what is equally explainable by utter incompetence? Some, it seems likely, will not; yet perhaps they should offer at least the opportunity for those involved to point out their innocent error before making any legally actionable charges. There could be a completely innocent explanation for why, for example, it escaped Mr.Herlihy’s mind while preparing the document that he was not at the time in fact the Honorary Treasurer of the SSAI, and had not been for some time.

Either way, it seems obvious that such an action, at a bare minimum, cannot have greatly aided relations between the SSAI and the Irish Sports Council at a time when grants and funding were already at issue, no matter how heartening it is to see that the controls enacted by the Irish Sports Council were successful in preventing the inadvertently erroneous allocation and distribution of public monies.

The full application:

At the recent Annual General Meeting of the SSAI,
it was agreed to wind up the SSAI and to form a new
organisation with new values, and new goals
This organisation is called the:

Federation of Irish Shooting Associations

The SSAI as an organisation now no longer exists

Minister,

Firstly congratulations on your appointment to your new position at the head of the Department of Justice, Equality and Defence. Those of us in the shooting community wish you the best in this office, and look forward to the years to come. 

I have been an Olympic target shooter for many years, shooting air rifle, air pistol and smallbore rifle. I also help run http://targetshooting.boards.ie, which is the online discussion forum for target shooters in Ireland. Your appointment has been a much-discussed topic in even the short time since it was announced today. As such, I thought I would send you an email to ask if you could write a few brief words for the shooting community upon your appointment, because at present, the community (of some 200,000 people) has spent some three years feeling as though your predecessor had a personal grudge against the community and was biased in his drafting of legislation as a result.

Prior to the election, another of the targetshooting.boards.ie moderators met with Charles Flanagan on this topic, and was assured by Deputy Flanagan that following the election, if a Fine Gael TD was appointed to the role of Minister for Justice, he would undertake to:

• to meet with the shooting community (via the Firearms Consultation Panel) and discuss the finer points at length
• to see the Firearms Consultation Panel made a permanent feature in any future legislation drafting.
• to fully review the centerfire pistol ban.

He also stated that Fine Gael would, in principle, like to see the minor changes require to expand Olympic air rifle shooting brought into law.

As your principal officers within the department can explain at length, the Firearms Consultation Panel is a body created by Micheal McDowell in order to facilitate the implementation of the 2006 Criminal Justice Act (which re-wrote the vast majority of the Firearms Act). It is chaired by the Department of Justice with the Minister normally represented through the Principal Officer of the Firearms Section, Garrett Byrne (who has worked with community representatives in a highly productive manner in the last seven years, and who is highly regarded by all in the administrative side of the shooting sports who have worked with him). The various shooting bodies, An Garda Siochana, the Department of Sport, and other stakeholders are all represented on the Panel and it is widely held within the shooting community to have been the most successful endeavour ever undertaken by the Department to consult with the shooting community. We would strongly hope to see it established on a permanent basis, instead of as a temporary panel concerned only with the 2006 Act (and the changes brought in since, which have been added to the original remit). A meeting of the Panel attended by yourself would be a strong gesture to the community indicating that your office intends to consult with stakeholders when considering policy changes.

In January of this year, you presented a written question on firearms licencing to your predecessor (question 499 on 11/01/11). The question summed up the main concern of the shooting community at the time:

Question 499: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the number of judicial reviews currently before the High Court arising out of a refusal to grant firearms licences; his plans to undertake a review of existing firearms legislation or to issue further guidance to the Garda Commissioner regarding the licensing of firearms; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48108/10]

Dermot Ahern (Minister, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform; Louth, Fianna Fail)
I can inform the Deputy that in the region of 175 judicial reviews have been lodged arising from refusals to grant firearms licences by designated persons within An Garda Síochána. As the matter is currently before the Courts, I cannot comment in any substantive way but I understand that a small number of representative test cases will be heard.
As the Deputy will appreciate firearms licensing is an operational matter for An Garda Síochána. Each application is judged on its own merits and the decision on whether, or not, to grant a firearm certificate rests solely with the issuing person. The decision of the issuing person cannot be fettered in any way and I have no role in the matter. Finally, as of now, there are no plans to review the existing firearms legislation.

At the time, a serious problem was arising over the licencing of sporting pistols; since then, this problem has worsened and today nearly 200 cases are now before the courts. Despite your predecessors statement above, a resolution to the problem was within his aegis, and now lies within yours. If you were to amend the restricted firearms list to include all pistols covered by the International Olympic Council’s rules on suitable short firearms for use in competition, it would do away with the majority of these cases at a stroke of a pen (a statutory instrument would be all that would be required), and the resulting goodwill could easily be leveraged to find non-judicial resolution in the few remaining cases. 

Lastly, there are some legislative changes which most of those in our community would feel are deeply necessary at the present time. For a start, a legal restatement of the Firearms Act has been badly needed (and recommended by the Law Reform Commission) for several years now – at present it consists of eight Firearms Acts, portions of several other Acts (such as the Wildlife Acts and at least one Road Traffic Act), two EU directives and over fifty Statutory Instruments, all of which must be read together to understand the current law. We estimate that there are no more than two dozen people in the state who truly understand the Firearms Acts as a whole, most of whom sit in the Firearms Consultation Panel meetings. 

We would also strongly support legislative changes to harmonise our Firearms Act with those of our partners in the EU. For example, we are the only member state in the EU where Olympic airguns are considered legally firearms (to give a sense of the low power of these airguns, consider that paintball markers have more than twice the muzzle energy of an Olympic air rifle). As a result of this status in Ireland, one of the safest and most popular sports in the world, airgun shooting (which is as popular as soccer across half of Europe) is not as popular as smallbore or fullbore shooting here. Were we to change the 1 Joule muzzle energy limit in section one of the Firearms Act to 7.5 Joules, we would promote Olympic airgun shooting enormously; given that our Olympic Shotgun team has won the World Championships (in 2002) and one of the team won the individual World Championships again in 2010, we have proven we have a significant pool of talent for the shooting sports here, and if airgun shooting was less restrictive, we believe we could pursue and attain an Olympic medal in the sport within ten years. 

While we realise that you have enormous demands on your time at present, it would make an enormous impact with the 200,000 people in the shooting community if you could make a general statement as to your feelings regarding our sport, no matter how brief; and while we also realise you must consult with your Department and be more fully briefed by them, if you could give a general statement in principle as to the points above, that would greatly excite our community and give them cause to hope for several years of a productive relationship with the Department and yourself.

Yours in Sport,

At the time, I didn’t expect a rapid answer, and indeed it wasn’t rapid – the letter was sent on March 10 and the reply was drafted on April 20 and only received on April 27. As you can surmise from the letterhead modifications (click on the image to see the full letter), the department is undergoing some organisational changes. So while the answer I received was not encouraging, I don’t believe it is a final, unalterable roadmap for the next few years; and with that caveat in mind, it’s not the worst response we could have seen.

Response from the Minister for Justice

There are redactions above, the reasons for them were given in an appendix:

The notes on the test cases in the High Court should seem fairly obviously important to centerfire pistol shooters, and the notes on the drafting of the Explosives Act should be of interest to those looking at handloading; it’s disappointing that the restatement of the Firearms Act that has been promised for so long isn’t on the document as a priority, but hopefully that won’t stop it being done, especially with the Law Reform Commission’s recommendation behind it; and equal hopes apply to seeing the muzzle energy limit for airguns raised to 7.5J.

It seems that it is still very much a wait-and-see time for target shooting at the moment.

Hi,

As an Olympic target shooter, I’d like to ask for details on Fianna Fail’s policies and plans with regards to the Firearms Act, the handgun ban and private firearms ownership in Ireland, and to invite you to engage with the target shooting and hunting community on shooting.boards.ie to discuss these matters. With some 200,000 licenced firearms owners in the state, I think such engagement would be appropriate during the election campaign.

Regards,

Received in response:

Dear Mr. Dennehy,
Thank you for your email dated 13th February 2011.

Fianna Fail has no plans to change existing legislation which we believe serves several very important functions, and strikes a balance between these and recreational interests generally. We are supportive of the sports of target shooting and hunting, and are mindful of their social importance, particularly in rural areas. We will view the website you refer to and would be happy to engage with any representations.

Yours sincerely,
Clare Minihane
Fianna Fáil Headquarters

Thank you Demot. I’m sorry to say that I consider it a disappointing answer; a speech given two years ago in relation to a specific piece of legislation and a statement that no policy would be commented on without seeking professional advice is not the statement of the basic principles Labour would use when deciding on policy that I was hoping for.

I know that at present, none of the 200,000 licenced firearms holders in the state is likely to vote for a Green Party or Fianna Fail candidate; however, the choice between Fine Gael, Labour and Independent candidates, especially in rural constituencies, is one that clear support for sensible legislation in this area could swing in Labour’s favour – many of the 200,000 licenced firearms holders are farmers living in rural areas, and many of those who are not farmers also live in rural areas. Fine Gael’s stated policy on this is to leave the current legislation in place (a policy which few in the community would feel was fair or just or even effective) – surely this would be an opportunity for Labour to convince more undecided voters in rural constituencies to vote Labour?

Regards,

This was not responded to. Following some parallel discussions, the following was sent:

Some of us target shooters spoke with Charlie Flanagan of Fine Gael on the topic of firearms legislation in more detail yesterday. He was completely against alot of the policies enacted by Dermot Ahern. He committed to meet with us and discuss the finer points at length, and on specific details said he would like to see the issues around the muzzle energy limit for air rifles and other similar minor issues changed to encourage and expand the international and Olympic end of the sport. He also said that he met a few times with the Firearms Consultation Panel, representatives from clubs such as Hilltop and the MNSCI, and would like to see the Firearms Consultation Panel made a permanent feature in any future legislation drafting. He said in relation to the centerfire handgun ban that while he is fully aware that no legally held firearms have been used and admits that Minister Ahern targeted respectable shooters and not criminals in his efforts, that he would for the immediate future revert to the Garda Commissioner on certain matters, but agreed to a full review.

In light of this, could you please ask Pat Rabbitte to review his position on this matter?

Thank you,

In response:

I really do not have any more to add to what we have already sent.

Pondering whether or not it was understood how large the demographic involved was, this was sent:

Dermot, there are 200,000 licenced firearms holders in the state. We worked before with Labour (both Brendan Howlin in 2006 and Pat Rabbitte in 2009) to good effect, now we’re looking for a committment from Labour to continue that work and fix broken legislation and you basicly haven’t given it — but Fine Gael have. Who would you advise us to vote for?

And this was received:

There is a commitment to work with stakeholders on the issues. I just cannot confirm an outcome at this stage.

At this point I thought there might have been a miscommunication earlier, so I sought to clarify:

Dermot, I didn’t see any commitment in our email exchange – all you sent was that whomever the Minister was would have to take professional advice and Garda advice and you referred me to a two-year-old speech that didn’t cover (and couldn’t cover) recent issues. There was no commitment and you didn’t lay out what Labour’s principles were on firearms policy.

Look, right now what we’ve been given a commitment on by Fine Gael is:

• to meet with the shooting community (via the Firearms Consultation Panel) and discuss the finer points at length
to see the Firearms Consultation Panel made a permanent feature in any future legislation drafting.
• to fully review the centerfire handgun ban.

And we had a statement that in principle, they would like to see the minor changes we sought to expand Olympic air rifle shooting.

Can Labour give the same committment and can Labour agree to that same statement?

No response was received to this prior to the release of this document from the NARGC, so this was sent to obtain a response on that document:

Dermot, reminding you first of all that there are some 200,000 licenced firearms holders in Ireland and some 600,000 involved in fieldsports in Ireland, could you please respond to the email below and to the attached document (which was released today by the National Association of Regional Game Councils) please?

The responses will go up on http://guns.ie and http://shooting.boards.ie (which is the discussion forum used by target shooters and hunters in Ireland).

Thank you,

And this was the sole response:

We have responded to this before.

Based on this, it seems that on target shooting issues at least, Labour cannot be recommended as a first choice for shooters, and Fine Gael would seem the more logical choice; at least based on election manifestos.

Hi,
As an Olympic target shooter registered to vote in your  constituency, I’d like to ask for details on your policies and plans with regards to the Firearms Act, the handgun ban and private firearms ownership in Ireland.

Some specific questions on those policies include:

• Have you plans to increase the current level of regulation or to roll back the current level in order to harmonise our regulations with other EU states?
• Would you be willing to remove centerfire target pistols from the Restricted Firearms list, thus allowing them to be licenced again?
• Would you be willing to deregulate target shooting airguns up to 7.5 Joules of muzzle energy as opposed to the current 1 Joule permitted under the Act in order to promote Olympic target shooting in Ireland?
• Would you address the issues raised by medical associations regarding the application for a firearms licence and its implicit – but deemed insufficient by the GPs – granting of permission to Gardai to access medical records?
• Would you be willing to widen the remit of the Firearms Consultation Panel, to make it a permanent body to facilitate access to technical expertise for the Department and to strengthen communications links between the target shooting sports governing bodies and the Department and the Gardai to ensure the smooth working of the Firearms Act?
• What would you intend to do at a strategic level to alleviate the current problems with licencing which have resulted in nearly 200 cases being taken against Garda Superintendents in the District Courts at great expense to all?
• Would you support a restatement of the Firearms Acts in order to address the deep complexity of the law at the present time (with 8 Firearms Acts, several Wildlife and Road Traffic Acts, more then 30 Statutory Instruments and 2 EU directives and their updates all having to be read in conjunction with one another to determine the current laws relating to firearms in Ireland?

I would also like to invite you to engage with the target shooting and hunting community on http://shooting.boards.ie to discuss these matters. With some 200,000 licenced firearms owners in the state, I think such engagement would be appropriate during the election campaign.

Regards,

Received in reply:

Thank you for your email and interest in the policies of Fís Nua.

As you can appreciate, our party candidates (having overcome the restrictions imposed upon us in entering this election) are concentrating on the main economic and political reforms that are essential to be implemented in order to secure a future for this nation.

While matters such as yours require proper attention and debate, part of Fís Nua’s political reform is to implement community councils at which such policy can be discussed by all concerned, subsequently then directing councils and politicans on how to vote on the matter, without having to wait every election to have your voice heard.

We trust that you will continue to support us in implementing these necessary reforms in order for us to create a proper democratic society and to assist us to this end by getting our message of reform out there.

Thank you for your time in bringing this matter to our attention.

Regards,

Hi,
As an Olympic target shooter registered to vote in your  constituency, I’d like to ask for details on your policies and plans with regards to the Firearms Act, the handgun ban and private firearms ownership in Ireland.

Some specific questions on those policies include:

• Have you plans to increase the current level of regulation or to roll back the current level in order to harmonise our regulations with other EU states?
• Would you be willing to remove centerfire target pistols from the Restricted Firearms list, thus allowing them to be licenced again?
• Would you be willing to deregulate target shooting airguns up to 7.5 Joules of muzzle energy as opposed to the current 1 Joule permitted under the Act in order to promote Olympic target shooting in Ireland?
• Would you address the issues raised by medical associations regarding the application for a firearms licence and its implicit – but deemed insufficient by the GPs – granting of permission to Gardai to access medical records?
• Would you be willing to widen the remit of the Firearms Consultation Panel, to make it a permanent body to facilitate access to technical expertise for the Department and to strengthen communications links between the target shooting sports governing bodies and the Department and the Gardai to ensure the smooth working of the Firearms Act?
• What would you intend to do at a strategic level to alleviate the current problems with licencing which have resulted in nearly 200 cases being taken against Garda Superintendents in the District Courts at great expense to all?
• Would you support a restatement of the Firearms Acts in order to address the deep complexity of the law at the present time (with 8 Firearms Acts, several Wildlife and Road Traffic Acts, more then 30 Statutory Instruments and 2 EU directives and their updates all having to be read in conjunction with one another to determine the current laws relating to firearms in Ireland?

I would also like to invite you to engage with the target shooting and hunting community on http://shooting.boards.ie to discuss these matters. With some 200,000 licenced firearms owners in the state, I think such engagement would be appropriate during the election campaign.

Regards,

Received in reply:

Fergie here from bennys site got ur message and your photograph  which i’ve duly forward to rte also will give  Mick Curley ur message regarding open door
thanks for your message.

Regards