A MINIMUM jail sentence of five years for possession of guns and an amnesty to take lethal weapons out of circulation are to be introduced by the Irish government in a bid to curb a wave of gun crime.

Michael McDowell is to bring legislation before the Dail proposing minimum sentences of between five and seven years for possession of firearms. He plans an amnesty for illegally held weapons to be handed to gardai before the new gun laws come into effect.

The justice minister also wants to introduce compulsory gun cabinets, with special security features, for those licensed to keep firearms.

The latest crime figures, published last week, revealed a sharp increase in gun crime, even as serious crime fell by 6%. The first three months of the year revealed a 54% increase in the number of guns fired, compared with the same period last year — about 29 additional shootings. McDowell says the figures are a cause for “deep concern”.

The Progressive Democrat minister hopes to replicate a successful arms amnesty in Britain which resulted in 25,000 illegal weapons being handed in to police. He says the amnesty will not extend to guns used in serious crimes.

“An amnesty will not operate so as to absolve anyone from criminality if it is proven that the weapon was involved in a murder or something like that,” McDowell said yesterday.

“My view would be that if you are going to toughen up the firearms laws, it is fair to allow people to have one chance to give up the guns beforehand. If you are going to introduce sentence guidance for the judiciary, I think they would like to see that people who found themselves in possession of firearms had been given a chance to hand them in.”

The minister ruled out allowing gardai to carry guns in response to gangland crime. He said a tough new anti-gun culture was “the price of having an unarmed police force”.

“I don’t want to send people to jail because they haven’t paid their shotgun licences, but I do want the judiciary to really come down like the clappers on firearms,” he said.

The minister plans to introduce increased sentences and tough minimum sentencing guidelines for judges considering charges of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life or possession of a firearm in suspicious circumstances.

He said he will consult the director of public prosecutions on how a gun amnesty might operate, and he would closely study the British model. “I want to do it this year, but my problem is getting legislation through the Oireachtas. There is so much accumulated legislation there,” he said.“I am also thinking of introducing compulsory gun cabinets with special security features for the owners of legally held weapons.”

The minister’s comments coincided with another fatal shooting in Dublin yesterday. A man was killed outside Cloverhill prison in west Dublin. The 24-year-old, from Clondalkin, was shot three times as he sat in the passenger seat of a BMW car outside the jail shortly after 3pm. It is understood the victim was waiting for another man who was visiting an inmate of the prison.

A motorbike with two people then approached and its pillion passenger shot the man through the window of the car. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

McDowell has said the rise in shootings is linked to a significant increase in the number of stolen shotguns in circulation among criminal gangs, often used for “debt collection” by drug dealers. He said illegal drugs shipments include weapons thrown in as “sweeteners” to the deal in recognition of the growing level of violence within the drug trade.

The garda’s provisional figures for the first three months of 2004 showed a drop of 6.5% in the number of headline — or serious — offences, down from 27,345 offences to 25,572.

Burglaries increased by 6% from 6,419 to 6,850. Robberies from financial institutions were significantly down but robbery of cash in transit was up 53%, suggesting a switch in tactics by crime gangs.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre said the figures do not reflect reality. Rosemary Daly, the chief executive, said the centre had calls relating to 283 rapes in January and February alone. She said victims had no confidence in the justice system and chose not to report attacks.

Opposition parties also disputed the figures. Joe Costello, Labour’s spokesman on justice, said close to 300 serious crimes were committed every day.

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