Minister confirms stiffer sentences for serious knife crimes
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee (right) with Minister of State James Browne speaking after bringing recommendations to increase penalties for knife crime to Cabinet on Tuesday. Ms McEntee also outlined a number of changes to strengthen the use of ASBOs (anti-social behaviour orders). Photo: Eamonn Farrell/© RollingNews.ie
Possessing a knife in public, trespassing with a knife or using a knife to intimidate will all carry harsher penalties, the Justice Minister has announced.
Helen McEntee has today secured Cabinet approval to amend legislation to increase sentences for a number of knife-related crimes. The planned new sentences will also include stiffer penalties for importing knives.
Ms McEntee said Ireland has seen a "small and incremental problem" with knives and it is important to ensure it does not become worse. She said: "There is a difference between carrying a knife and carrying with intent".
"The current maximum sentence for serious offences — possession of a knife with intent to unlawfully cause injury, trespassing with a knife, and producing a knife to unlawfully intimidate another person — do not appear to be proportionate when compared with simple possession of a knife, and yet they carry the same maximum sentence of five years.
“That is why we are changing the maximum penalty for these serious knife crime offences, clearly targeting persons who have a willingness and intent to use knives, to a seven-year maximum sentence. We are also increasing the penalty for importing and selling knives and such weapons from seven to 10 years.
"This sentence increase is in line with other recent increases I have made, including doubling the maximum sentence for assault causing harm and increasing the maximum sentence for conspiracy to murder to life.”
Ms McEntee also outlined a number of changes to strengthen the use of ASBOs (anti-social behaviour orders) which were also recommended by the Anti Social Behaviour Forum. This includes making it easier to issue an ASBO.
She said Ireland is "not in the situation of London or Glasgow" where gang-related knife crime is high, but said it is important to match the punishment to the crime.
Junior Justice Minister James Browne said a knife amnesty was not considered.
"Experience in other countries shows that there is very little benefit to a knife amnesty for a simple reason — they are so easy to obtain," he said. "In other countries they collect a large amount of knives but that has very little or no impact on actual knife crime because if you go back to your kitchen, you get another knife."
The Justice Minister denied making a "u-turn" on knife crime. Fianna Fáil's Jim O'Callaghan has said that the measures do not go far enough and fall short of a bill that he has proposed, but Ms McEntee said the government had "worked collaboratively" to come up with the new guidelines.
