Gun owners have been left “sidelined” in the effort to examine and reform Ireland’s firearm licencing system, according to a group representing firearm users.
The Firearms Users Representative Group (FURG), an umbrella group made up of several groups of gun owners, firearm dealers, and hunters, has said that it has had “serious reservations” about the process since it commenced.
Last week, a government-appointed group produced two reports recommending a series of reforms to Ireland’s firearms licencing system.
The Firearms Expert Committee, chaired by solicitor Emma Meagher Neville, was established by the Department for Justice in June 2022 to examine the current approach to licensing guns in Ireland.
It fell under the portfolio of Minister of State James Brown, who has responsibility for law reform.
The committee said that the “unease” around public safety had to be balanced with concerns of the shooting community, the “vast majority of whom possess their firearms in a responsible and safe manner”.
However, FURG has criticised the way that the committee was set up and how it came to its recommendations, citing a lack of proper engagement with gun owners.
The two reports, FURG said, “will possibly hold the record of going from publication to the bin in record time”.
“Minister Brown set this process in motion just over one year ago, and from the start it was in trouble.
“The way he picked his experts [had]…very clearly little to do with getting a better, fairer and more equitable licencing system.
“The missing element from all this, the 220,000 licence holders, were ignored and sidelined at every opportunity,” FURG claimed.
The group also said that the reports “have been damaged and lost all credibility” among firearm owners.
FURG was originally established by various groups last year in anticipation that the Firearms Expert Committee would not result in a licencing system that was fit for purpose.
FURG claimed that, since it was set up, the committee and the minister have refused to meet with the firearms owners group, or any other representative of firearm licence holders, and that the committee only heard from government officials working in the area of firearm regulation.
The group said: “Minister Brown is consistent on one issue; refusing to meet any licence holder, and after all that has happened, he is still holding firm on that stance.
“He promised that he would meet FURG when the reports were published, but now he has yet again deviated from that by implying he will meet FURG after he conducts some type of online consultation,” the FURG statement added.
The gun owners representative group said that reform and streamlining of the firearms licencing system in “badly needed”, and that the current system is “broken”, which FURG said has been caused by the Department of Justice issuing statutory instruments “that are confusing, contradictory, and simply not fit for purpose”.
“FURG believes that the only way forward and out of this current mess, is that Minister Brown meets FURG as a matter of urgency, and a proper committee of all the stakeholders is immediately set up.
“The committee, together with the minister and the Garda Commissioner, must then set about sorting out this mess, and bring in a fair, transparent, and equitable system fit for purpose in 2023 and onwards,” FURG said.