Almost 700 Weapons Surrendered In Weapons Amnesty

By George Thompson

The breakdown of the weapons which have been sent to Garda headquarters is: 502 firearms, 82 knives, 21 swords and 22 "others".

A recent knife amnesty in Britain saw 90,000 knives handed alone whilst a similar Swedish weapons amnesty in 1993 yielded more than 17,000 guns.

It is thought that the only impact this amnesty has achieved has been to decommission Civil War and historical weapons with no significant impact on modern weaponry and the aim of the amnesty which was safety in the community. There are almost one quarter of a million legally held weapons in the Republic of Ireland.

Opposition justice spokesman, Fine Gael's Jim O'Keeffe last night said the weapons amnesty was a "total failure". With €331,608 spent on advertising and promotion, the figure of 627 weapons was very low when compared to similar operations in other countries, he said.

Mr McDowell's spokeswoman said the Minister had never claimed the amnesty would result in the surrender of a very large number of weapons.

The main reason for it was to afford people with illegally-held guns the opportunity to regularize their positions ahead of the introduction from November 1st of mandatory sentencing for firearms offences, she added.