213,000 legally held guns in State

There are more than 213,000 legally-held firearms in the Republic, The Irish Times has learned.

Responding to queries last night the Department of Justice confirmed that there were a total of 213,563 legally held firearms in the State.

The Department of Justice was unable to provide figures for the number of legally-held weapons when Mr Michael Noonan TD (FG) sought the information last week.

The department told Mr Noonan current gun ownership figures and figures for the last number of years, which he had sought, were not readily available and would be compiled by gardaí and sent to him when collated.

However, following queries from The Irish Times, the department said the number of firearms certificates on issue was just over 213,000.

The certificates are issued in respect of each weapon and are renewed every 12 months.

Mr Noonan said he was "very surprised" at the level of gun ownership in Ireland. It seemed "very high indeed".

He was also disappointed that gardaí and the Department of Justice were unable to furnish him with the information he was looking for on historical ownership trends since 2002.

"You would have thought that they'd have this information on a computer database that could be easily accessed. I came into information that there had been a big increase in the number of gun certs issued in the last 12 months, particularly hand guns, and I was trying to see if this was true," he said.

The Department of Justice or gardaí were unable to furnish any historical details to The Irish Times for the number of legally held weapons.