Justice Minister Helen McEntee says she is introducing tougher sentences for knife crime as a “preventative measure”.
Cabinet approved a proposal from the Justice Minister to increase sentences for knife-related crimes after new Taoiseach Simon Harris pledged to focus on law and order.
These include possessing a knife with intent to unlawfully cause injury, trespassing with a knife and producing a knife to unlawfully intimidate from a maximum sentence of five to seven years.
The penalty for importing and selling knives is to be increased from seven to 10 years.
The Government said it would also look to introduce a minimum age by which you can purchase a knife in Ireland.
She said the measures were being introduced based on recommendations from the Anti-Social Behaviour Forum, established in 2020 by junior minister at the Department of Justice James Browne.
“It’s about making sure every one is proportionate to the offence,” said Minister of State Mr Browne.
“Knives are extremely dangerous and knife crime must carry significant consequences,” Ms McEntee said on Tuesday.
There were 2,146 knives seized in 2019, 2,260 in 2020 and 2,186 in 2023, according to Garda figures.
Knife crime has become a significant issue in the UK, with knife crime offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales rising year-on-year, but not as high as before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some 48,716 offences were recorded in the 12 months to September 2023, a 5% rise from 46,367 in the previous 12 months.
Asked whether she expected knife-related crime to fall as a result of these changes, she said: “What we always need to do is try and put in place preventative measures.
“Thankfully, we’re not in a situation where we potentially are in London or Glasgow, where we have particular gangs where knife crime is a really serious issue.
“We have seen a small and incremental problem here in Ireland, and we need to make sure that it doesn’t get any worse.
“So this is about making sure to Minister Browne’s point, the punishment matches the crime at the moment.
“Simple possession for a knife is five years, possession with intent is also five years. So what is happening here is we’re increasing the sentence to match the crime that’s been committed.”
Asked if this represented a “Fine Gael U-turn”, Ms McEntee said Mr Browne, who is a Fianna Fail TD, had been working on the issue of knife crime “for some time”.
Mr Browne said a knife amnesty would be “a very expensive route” that would bring “very little benefit” because knives were so easily obtained.
A knife amnesty involves giving people the opportunity to dispose of knives in amnesty bins in communities.
“So while amnesties in other countries have collected large amounts of knives, they have very little or no impact on actual knife crime – they can simply go back to your kitchen and get another knife,” Mr Browne said.
He said through a youth diversion project, young people who committed crimes but accepted they had done wrong and were prepared to engage could be diverted towards better behaviour.
“But where young people persistently refused the opportunities given to them, they will face the courts and they will face ultimately prison,” he said.
Mr Browne said the measures did go far enough, but added that Ireland was one of the few countries in the West that did not have an age limit on the purchase of knives.
The proposed legislative changes would mean that the minister for justice could add banned knives as they became an issue, by way of a statutory instrument.
“For example, zombie knives are a serious issue in the UK, they’re not an issue here. But if they ever were to, we could move very quickly on it,” Mr Browne said.
Ms McEntee said she would be looking to progress the legislation “as quickly as possible”, while Mr Browne said that Fianna Fail TD Jim O’Callaghan’s Bill could be “restarted immediately” and amended to bring changes through quickly.