The Government will legislate to allow gardaí to stop and search individuals they suspect are carrying knives.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said in the Dáil that the initial broad outline of the Garda Powers Bill was published last year. “I will bring that legislation forward to this House.”
He was responding to Sinn Féin justice spokesman Matt Carthy, who raised the issue in the wake of recent knife incidents and the death of Quham Babatunde after he was stabbed on South Anne Street at the weekend.
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Mr Carthy said that on Tuesday the Taoiseach told his party leader Mary Lou McDonald “there was a robust legal framework to deal with knife crime, suggesting that there were no gaps in the powers that gardaí have to address this serious crime”.
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However, he said the Minister since suggested otherwise in an interview on Virgin Media’s Tonight Show “when he indicated that new laws would need to be introduced to give gardaí greater powers to stop and search people they suspect of carrying knives”.
Mr Carthy asked when the Government became aware that existing knife crimes were “not adequate to deal with the issue”.
“Was the issue raised with them by members of the Gardaí or was the Government aware of this deficiency when it championed its previous legislation that it told us addressed this issue?
[ Sinn Féin leader highlights knife crime and offences by those on bailOpens in new window ]
“Will the Government now accept that no amount of new laws will cover up for the fact that we simply do not have enough gardaí on the streets of our cities and towns?”
The Minister said that last year more than 2,100 knives were seized by the Garda and “that’s part of the solution”.
Mr O’Callaghan said the Garda must also have powers to stop and search people they suspect are carrying knives.
He will bring forward the Bill, the heads of which had been published last year and which is listed as priority legislation, to codify the powers of arrest, search and detention.
The Minister said he hopes Mr Carthy, Sinn Féin and all Opposition members will support it. “It is clear we need a strong, clear statutory basis in order for gardaí to seize knives which we all admit are a dangerous threat to people in our community.”
In the Dáil on Wednesday Ms McDonald said “the carrying of knives now presents a clear and present danger to the public” and is “endemic”.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said prison sentences for knife crime have increased from five to seven years.
