The number of weapons handed in under the Government's weapons amnesty stood at 627 last night, almost 300 more than gardaí reported as having been handed in by Monday, according to the Department of Justice.
A spokeswoman for Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said this was mainly because individual Garda stations and districts had not submitted their figures for weapons surrendered by that time.
The deadline for the amnesty passed on Tuesday.
It is believed that up to 700 weapons may have been surrendered by the time final figures are available next Monday.
The breakdown of the weapons which have been sent to Garda headquarters is: 502 firearms, 82 knives, 21 swords and 22 "others".
Fine Gael justice spokesman 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.
A similar Swedish weapons amnesty in 1993 yielded more than 17,000 guns, he said, while a recent knife amnesty in Britain saw 90,000 knives handed in, or one weapon for every 660 people.
He said there were 226,533 legally-held weapons in the State.
"Its main effect has been to decommission Civil War historical items and bizarre old weapons that are not likely to impact on the safety of our communities in any respect," Mr O'Keeffe 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 regularise their positions ahead of the introduction from November 1st of mandatory sentencing for firearms offences, she added.
