New Minister for Justice

shanmoll308

A fellow Kerry man.

Shanmoll308

Sparks

Sparks wrote: »

And our new Minister for Sport is Jimmy Deenihan.

Ah. Whoops. No, sorry, my bad - they've moved Sports from the Department of Arts, Sports And Tourism to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sports. So Arts gets Deenihan, but the new Minister for Sport is now Leo Varadkar.

dos29

Possible silly question alert.....
Are ministry's for justice and defence held by one person now? As in Shatter?
Or has it been that way for a while?

Sparks

Not a silly question dos; yes, Shatter now has both Justice and Defence, and no, that's a new thing. They've moved around the portfolios a bit:

Eamon Gilmore Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade
Minister for Finance Michael Noonan
Minister for Education and Skills Ruarai Quinn
Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin
Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation Richard Bruton
Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton
Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs Jimmy Deenihan
Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government Phil Hogan
Minister for Agriculture Marine and Food Simon Coveney
Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Pat Rabbitte
Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence Alan Shatter
Minister for Children Francis Fitzgerald
Minister for Health James Reilly
Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar

Sparks

Tackleberrywho wrote: »

Jaubus we're all fecked, he hates guns!

I dunno Tack, he's asked a fair few parlimentary questions for target shooters. On the other hand, he was listed as the president of ICABS for a while, but I think that lot have listed every TD ever as a president at some point (being honorary president of a group made up of 20 people isn't exactly what you'd call a big role, and not only is official FG party policy not ICABS friendly - they plan to repeal the stag hunting ban - but Shatter voted against the stag hunting ban when it was introduced. I don't think ICABS liked him for that, they were calling on people to contact him to complain at the time. )
And while we didn't get a great initial statement from Fine Gael on firearms policy, later discussions with FG TDs on a direct basis were far more promising.
It's not utterly hopeless just yet I think.

kildare.17hmr

From alan shatters personal profile on his website

As a student, Alan was Director of the Crumlin Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC) and later became Chairman of FLAC. He subsequently became Chairman of CARE (Campaign for Deprived Children) and was for many years President of the Irish Council against Blood Sports.

meathshooter1

sporting firearms should be taken from justice and come under the minister for sports brief

johngalway

You know, there's a thread on going over in Nature & Birdwatching expressing alarm that Phil Hogan has been appointed Minister for the Environment. Mothman wisely said he's going to base his opinion on performance. Which is what I'm going to do with Shatter. I'm not over joyed at his appointment given his past (?) interests, but we'll have to see how he cuts his cloth.

johngalway

shanmoll308 wrote: »

A fellow Kerry man.

Shanmoll308

We're all doomed!

Sparks

meathshooter1 wrote: »

sporting firearms should be taken from justice and come under the minister for sports brief

It's not a horrible idea. The problem does arise of distinguishing between sporting firearms and other firearms though.

The point of Justice and Sport being more closely linked here was made a few years back though - that's why the Minister for Sport is represented on the FCP by the Irish Sports Council. Though, it does feel like they've not taken that role very seriously...

Sparks

kildare.17hmr wrote: »

From alan shatters personal profile on his website

Yes, but he voted against the Stag Hunting ban, and his party's pledged to repeal that ban. And ICABS has a habit of appointing anyone to their presidency who looks like they might see the inside of the Dail in the next century. It's worrying, but it's not the end of days just yet.

daveob007

i have already sent my email to fg michael noonan as my local rep who then passed it on to the justice spokesperson,,it outlined my frustration with aherns failed cjb.
too early for a reply just yet,,let them enjoy the honeymoon period.

btw anyone know if deasy got in??? just curious.

kildare.17hmr

Sparks wrote: »

Yes, but he voted against the Stag Hunting ban, and his party's pledged to repeal that ban. And ICABS has a habit of appointing anyone to their presidency who looks like they might see the inside of the Dail in the next century. It's worrying, but it's not the end of days just yet.

didnt know he voted against the stag hunt bill. just thought if he felt the need to have it on his personal profile on his own website it must mean something to him like

Sparks

Votes from bambi-lovers I'd guess

kildare.17hmr

hopefully

Grizzly 45

Sparks wrote: »

It's not a horrible idea. The problem does arise of distinguishing between sporting firearms and other firearms though.

FFS! Are we off on THIS again????

A gun is a GUN is a GUN!! Wether it has a weird stock, goes Phutt instead of BANG.Is day glo pink or evil black.It is irrevelant!! They ALL have a sporting purpose here in the ROI if they are liscensed and in civillian hands.

Sparks

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

FFS! Are we off on THIS again????
A gun is a GUN is a GUN!! Wether it has a weird stock, goes Phutt instead of BANG.Is day glo pink or evil black.It is irrevelant!! They ALL have a sporting purpose here in the ROI if they are liscensed and in civillian hands.

Feck's sake Grizzly, take a breath and re-read the post, it's not saying what you think it says.
The idea of having the Department of Sport handle licencing for target shooting is not a horrible one.
The problem is the Minister of Justice will immediately point out that you can't distinguish a sporting firearm from a non-sporting firearm. (And we do licence non-sporting firearms - the largest group of licenced firearms in the state are non-sporting firearms, usually single-barrel shotguns, licenced to farmers).

Grizzly 45

Whoa!Whoa!whoa! your post at 21;36 is saying somthing totally different to what you are saying here! You have just added another sentence to this one which gives it a totally different meaning.
So which one will it be??If you want to clarify the point with this ..fine! But it does look vauge and discriminitory.
Somhow I think it wouldnt be beyond anyone in a ministerial dept to figure out that a Full Auto Uzi is not the same as a precision "tacticool" bolt action.[Ok they might have a bit of trouble if it was a semi auto UZI carbine,with a solid woodstock and 21.5 in barrel and somone is whispering poision in their uneducated ear.]
Point being could we give them some credit to know the difference??

You do know that as well as "shooting virmin"AKA hunting,[wether you can eat it or not doesnt come into the legislation] with the old single or DBBL barrel,the Gaurds will also accept clay piegon shooting as a good reason to posses a shotgun on your farm land.Ergo they falls under sporting firearms for statistical and legislative sake.

As for the minister for sport handling this ..nice thought,but we as shooters are really the red haired child of the Irish sports.We can lug back medals be the wheelbarrow load here,gold,silver ,platinium,but we might be lucky to get the middle page spread of somthing if it is a slow news day,and the over 90s Grannies olympic knitting finals are having a slow day!Point is;if we are treated with that much contempt by the media and the sports world in Ireland,what sort of a hames would they make accidently or on purpose of the legislation??
I'd rather see this been run by a new dept starting afresh with civillian personel with a knowledgeable base of legislation and firearms and related matters,and a Garda liasion officer simply for criminal checks on applicants.
With proper computerisation and redoing the liscense to a five year plastic chip embedded credit card.This could be run by oh what??Ten people??
We can live in hope!:rolleyes:

Sparks

And the .308 deer-hunting rifle that gets used in a friendly target shooting match at the MNSCI for a bit of fun? You and I both know Grizzly, lines get fuzzier the closer you look at them in our sport, and so the idea of splitting up the licencing between two different Departments - even if it'd make sense on one level - is never going to happen for pragmatic, practical reasons (as well as for conservative policy-level ones).

Grizzly 45

Agree100% with you on the fuzzy lines and thats my original point too!
Cal it target shooting or hunting in the broadest terms of what we do here,they are irrespective sporting firearms.No matter what they look like or have on them or colour or how many shots they hold.

meathshooter1

all firearms in the EU are put into categories whether it be A,B,C,D .in Ireland you can only licence a firearm for sporting purposes in this country(hunting, target,some humane dispatch)legislation is quite clear on this.Cat A will never be licenced to any civilian in this state, as we all know Cat B ie pistols ,semi auto centrefire are near impossible to licence with the new draconian laws of this state and misinterpretations of the licensing code from some senior authorities.shooting sports should be developed and encouraged in this country as there is a wealth of talent in the shooting community as we have all seen from the medals that have been won .Ideally I would love to see the licensing of firearms taken from the gardai after background checks and giving to a civilian organisation made up from people who know what they are talking about.a strict but fair transparent system.

Sparks

meath, the EU category A/B/C/D system has at best limited application in Ireland - the EU directive is explicit in that regard. Member States can have a more complicated system of categorisation or a simpler one; and can have far more restrictive legislation than the EU directive lays down. All that is explicitly set forth in the directive. It's not really the most helpful reference unfortunately, though if the option ever came up to chuck ours and go with theirs, we ought to grab it with both hands.

And I can't see any civilian organisation being given control over the licencing process like that. Doing the scutwork of looking after paperwork and so forth, maybe; but the AGS will never willingly give up being the people who say yay or nay to an application (even if some rank-and-file Gardai would love to do so).

meathshooter1

I know we have our own more complicated system but all firearms imported here from the EU come under these categories.

I notice you say the AGS wouldnt willingly give up control,and I know where your coming from.But after all they at the end of the day they are civil servants and there job is to carry out the law of the land NOT politics.they would still have some control which is only right.but at the minute they are not doing there job, as we have seen with all the court cases,the highest the state have ever seen,everybody can see something ain't right

Sparks

meathshooter1 wrote: »

I notice you say the AGS wouldnt willingly give up control,and I know where your coming from.But after all they at the end of the day they are civil servants and there job is to carry out the law of the land NOT politics.

Very true, and if the Minister had his mind set to it, that'd be the end of it.

However, even thought the last few Ministers and Commissioners weren't exactly bosum buddies, they're still a lot closer than the last few Minister and us. We put our case in the FCP, the Commissioner puts his. Three guesses who wins?

they would still have some control which is only right.but at the minute they are not doing there job, as we have seen with all the court cases,the highest the state have ever seen,everybody can see something ain't right

Yup, definitely. Absolutely. No question.
The only difference is in how we solve that problem. Because here's the thing:

Taking legal action like this against the state is like playing Russian Roulette – it doesn’t matter how often you win, losing just once is still going to ruin your whole day.

If just one of those 200 cases goes badly - and frankly, some of the things I've heard coming from one or two have been very risky indeed - we risk seeing lots of people lose heavily. And if all those cases go well, we see 200 people maintain their status quo.

We need a different way to resolve the root problem here.

meathshooter1

We need a different way to resolve the root problem here.[/QUOTE]

excactly the current system is not working with different interpretations all over the country from different supers/c supers.How much is this costing the individual and the state(as money is the big issue now) surely there can be another civil and more amicable way of sorting this out

Sparks

The problem at the root of it is the case we brought a decade ago meath - the Dunne case meant that noone could tell a Super what to do on a licencing decision. Imposing standard decision making after that was illegal.

Getting round a supreme court ruling that says you can't have a standardised decision making process is somewhat difficult.

Sparks

And it seems that Michael Ring was appointed as Junior Minister for Transport and Sport today, so that's another name to keep in mind for the future...

meathshooter1

Sparks wrote: »

The problem at the root of it is the case we brought a decade ago meath - the Dunne case meant that noone could tell a Super what to do on a licencing decision. Imposing standard decision making after that was illegal.

Getting round a supreme court ruling that says you can't have a standardised decision making process is somewhat difficult.

but that ruling was made on the old firearms act system.the new system was meant to iron all that out was rushed through the Dail under the CJA and did not receive the attention it deserved.also the commisioners guidelines where meant to clarify things yet we see different. this new goverment has said that they want change as a whole about many things lets see if thats the case.I have also spoke to a lot of garda my self and the majority of them are not happy with the system themselves.its the legacy that Dermot Ahern has left us now he is off enjoying his big fat pension and couldnt give a hoot .will FG/Labour carry on with his FF policys we have yet to see

Sparks

meathshooter1 wrote: »

but that ruling was made on the old firearms act system

Yes, but while we think that the persona designata ruling has been changed, that hasn't been confirmed by a court hearing as yet; everyone's politely ignoring it at the moment. And while the new system has the District Court Judge as the persona designata, there still is a persona designata at a local level, if you follow me. The can was kicked down the road, rather than being tidied up.

If we're lucky, we might see some change. It's one of the few areas of public policy where we could change things without the IMF's permission!

Grizzly 45

Think you will find that it is already the case that the DC is now the be and end all of final say on this.Yes it can go to the HC for decisions on points of law of either parties. But the HC will refer it back to the DCJ to reconsider the decision on the revelant points.

We had this in the Limerick situation last year,where the CS tried to appeal this to the circut court,claiming it was a civillian liscensing matter[like pubs and nite clubs].His appeal was overturned on the points that [a] the Circut court had nothing to do with the firearms legislation the act states quite clearly the procedure of appeal to the DC and thats the only court mentioned in the entire act,and the three verdicts that a DCJ can give in this matter.Uphold,direct the CS to reconsider,or grant.

So as far as I can see any CS disobying a DC verdict is putting himself above the law or trying to pervert the course of justice.Not a very good career move.