Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): I welcome Tommy Mayne, director of the British Association for Shooting and Conservation; Lyall Plant, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance; and David Robinson, chairman of the Gun Trade Guild Northern Ireland. I will just let you know that we are Hansarding this and that it will be on the Committee website in due course. If you want to quickly brief the Committee, we will open up for questions afterwards.

Mr David Robinson (Gun Trade Guild NI): Good afternoon, Committee. By way of introduction we would like to thank the Chair for giving us the opportunity to present to the Justice Committee. We welcome the opportunity to represent our members' interests. My name is David Robinson, chair of the Gun Trade Guild NI, and I am accompanied today by Tommy Mayne on my left, director of the British Association of Shooting and Conservation in Northern Ireland and, on my right, by the chief executive officer of Countryside Alliance Ireland, Mr Lyall Plant.

BASC and Countryside Alliance are the two main representative country sports organisations in the UK. The Gun Trade Guild NI represents firearms dealers of various sizes throughout the North. As well as our professional experience, collectively the three of us have been firearms certificate holders for over 95 years, and we have vast personal, practical experience in the many different aspects of shooting sports, including: game shooting, clay target shooting, wildfowling, pest control, deer stalking, as well as shotgun coaching and competitive shooting. It is therefore fair to say that we are well versed in firearms issues and disciplines and that we have the expertise to fully substantiate our thoughts and recommendations in respect of the proposed changes to Northern Ireland's firearms legislation.

At the outset, we reiterate our support for meaningful stakeholder engagement and participation in the firearms consultation process. We would like to emphasise the fact that we have engaged meaningfully, constructively and genuinely with the Department at each and every opportunity, where possible. It disappoints and frustrates us that the issues surrounding many aspects of the proposed changes to the legislation have been ongoing for a considerable number of years. It is our genuine desire to see a satisfactory solution to those issues. To push on, I shall pass over to Lyall, who will present our proposed solution on the age reduction for young shooters.

Mr Lyall Plant (Countryside Alliance Ireland): Thank you, David. We ask the Committee to note that we do not support the Minister's conclusion in relation to the minimum age of 12 years and the clay target restriction. While we would like to see the minimum age reduced to 10, which is the age of criminal responsibility, in an attempt to find a compromise we would agree to 11 years of age, with no clay target restriction.

We would like to emphasise to the Committee that our proposal in regard to young shots is and always has been intended to provide our young people in Northern Ireland with the opportunity to participate in shooting sports safely and under supervision during their formative years. The supervision criteria that we have proposed is much more robust than the system currently in place in GB because it introduces an increased minimum supervisory age of 25, with a requirement for five years' experience with that particular type of firearm. That means that the supervisor would have been through the mentoring process when their firearm certificate was initially granted, unlike GB where there is no requirement for anyone supervising a young person to hold a firearm certificate.

The Minister's proposed clay target restriction discriminates against young people who want to learn to shoot live quarry and vermin under supervision. The clay target restriction does not exist in any other part of GB and no problems have been encountered. We are aware that the Minister has not enacted the will of the Northern Ireland Assembly, which voted for no minimum age back in March 2011. However, that amendment lacked the all-important supervisory criteria that would ensure the safety of both the young person and the public. Furthermore, the Department is on record when presenting to this Committee as stating that, when it looked at the issue of young people having supervised access to shotguns in GB, there was no evidence of any problem.

Good regulation is based on sound evidence, and the Minister's conclusion on the age being reduced to 12 with a clay target restriction is not supported by evidence. Therefore, we believe that our proposed solution meets all the requirements that will allow young people to avail themselves of the opportunity to participate in shooting sports under supervision.

Our proposed solution is that the minimum age for supervised shooting using shotguns and air rifles should be reduced to 11 years of age for any lawful quarry and inanimate targets, under the supervision of a person aged 25 years or older who has held a firearm certificate for that particular type of firearm for five years.

We think that our proposal is sensible and robust and would allow young people to be taught safely and have respect for firearms under supervision at an early age. The supervisory criteria would remain in place until the young person reaches the age of 18. The current provision for 16 to 17-year-olds, as per article 7 of the Firearms (Northern Ireland) Order 2004, would remain in place.

I shall now hand over to Tommy, who will outline our view in relation to the Department's proposals on the banded system.

Mr Tommy Mayne (British Association for Shooting and Conservation): Thank you, Lyall. We ask the Committee to note that we do not support the Minister's conclusion in relation to the banded system. In an attempt to make some progress on the banded system some time ago and to see how it might be incorporated into the PSNI's existing procedures, we asked the PSNI on several occasions to provide us with a copy of their policy and procedures documentation. That did not happen, and we ended up submitting a freedom of information request in an attempt to get a copy. However, that, too, was unsuccessful.

While we note that the Department of Justice and the PSNI have concerns in relation to the banded system, we are aware that neither the Department nor the PSNI have presented any evidence to support their arguments. A broader banded system than that currently proposed by the Department would greatly benefit the gun trade and the 60,000 firearms certificate holders in NI. Indeed, in the words of the PSNI, it would offer "considerable flexibility". A broader banded system would also be of significant benefit to the PSNI's firearms and explosives branch (FEB), as it would reduce its workload and increase its efficiency without impinging on public safety.

We also believe that a broader banded system should be applied to firearms that have been conditioned for dual use, ie in target clubs and in the field. We further believe that the banded system should be based on the calibre of the firearm, not the type of firearm, for example. A firearms dealer cannot currently exchange a .22 LR semi-automatic rifle for a .22 LR bolt-action rifle. That transaction would require completion of the relevant variation paperwork and, under the current schedule of fees, a fee of £26, which would increase to £85 under the DOJ's latest fee proposal.

The Department of Justice and the PSNI have repeatedly stated that the banded system does not exist in any other jurisdiction. That does not mean that Northern Ireland should not lead the way in creating the model for a more efficient, cost-effective and safe licensing system.

The Committee has been supplied with handouts on the banded system. I draw your attention to those. The box on the left is our original proposal, and the box on the right is our compromise proposal. It is important to highlight that the two boxes on the right, highlighted in pink, show where the Department is currently and what it has agreed to. So, we are focusing on the yellow and blue boxes. We have reduced the number of bands in the yellow box. Originally, the Department had three and then, I think, two. We have put them down into one. We have also removed one of the calibres from that. The table on the left shows large quarry centrefire, which is band 4. We have reduced that from 16 calibres to seven. We believe that that is a very pragmatic, sensible compromise solution.

On the banded system, we also propose that any change of legislation should include an enabling clause so that, later on, we do not need primary legislation to tweak it.

A key factor to bear in mind when considering how the banded system works is the fact that the PSNI's firearms and explosives branch will have already processed the relevant paperwork and deemed an applicant fit to possess a firearm contained within the relevant band. So, we are not saying that you should give somebody a firearm within a band. The police will already have vetted and duly authorised somebody to possess a rifle in that band. The thinking behind the banded system is that that person, who is duly authorised to possess a rifle within that band, should be fit to exchange for another rifle in the same band, which he would have been authorised for in the first place at first application, providing he met the relevant criteria.

As far as our joint proposal is concerned, we have significantly reduced the number of calibres in band 4 from 16 to seven. We have also dropped one calibre, namely .218 Bee, from band 3 and merged the medium quarry band 3, 4 and 5 to include the more common fox calibres into one band, which is the yellow band. That is the way in which they are set out in the Home Office's 2002 guidance to police, which is currently used by the firearms and explosives branch.

We believe that our proposal for the banded system represents a pragmatic option for dealers and the 60,000 firearms certificate holders in Northern Ireland. In light of our scaled-down proposal, we recommend the following rules for the banded system. As I said previously, we believe that it should be applied to firearms that are conditioned for dual use, namely target use and field use. Generally, people who are involved in deer stalking are often members of a PSNI-approved target club, so to exclude those people who have their firearms conditioned for dual use would do them a great disservice.

In order to maintain the integrity of the firearms licensing system, we also suggest that target club secretaries be required to confirm their support for transactions completed under the banded system by signing a very slightly revised PSNI form confirming that the applicant is a full member of a registered target club, and that the club has access to a range suitable for that calibre. Under the rules for the banded system, we are saying that all handguns should be excluded, including personal protection weapons. All muzzle-loading and black-powder firearms should also be excluded. We do, however, feel that any firearm that is on loan should be included in a banded system because that could be facilitated in exactly the same way that a one-off, one-on transaction is done at present. Both firearms certificate holders must be present and complete separate forms that the dealer then faxes to the firearms and explosives branch, which then updates its electronic records. Contrary to what the Department says, there is no need to send a firearms certificate to firearms branch because, as I said, the PSNI simply updates its electronic records, and the firearms certificates can then be reprinted on the next return to the firearms and explosives branch.

Still focusing on our proposed rules for a banded system, we feel that a person under a six-month supervision clause — we must bear in mind that all new certificates, or certificates of anybody moving to a significantly different type of firearm come with a supervisory clause — could still exchange a firearm for another in the same band, given that they are issued for the same good reason to first-time applicants. Obviously, the supervision should continue for the remaining period, ie six months in total. When changing within a band, a change cannot be made to a firearm of a calibre that the individual already holds for the same good reason. Any transactions outside our proposed rules must be carried out under the normal variation process.

We also propose that the legislation be changed to provide dealers with the opportunity to make a one-off transaction. As part of the banded system, and per our original proposal, we feel that dealers should be allowed to do a one-off transaction in which a dealer removes a firearm from a firearms certificate without replacing it with any other firearm.

To ensure the smooth implementation of a banded system, we would be happy to work in conjunction with both the PSNI and the Department to draft a guidance document for firearms dealers and even run a number of workshops for dealers, at shared expense, prior to the implementation of the banded system.

To complement the banded system, we are also proposing that we move to what we call the "any lawful quarry" condition. Again, we note the DOJ and PSNI concerns on their belief that the banded system would result in difficulties with specific conditions and land that might not be suitable for the higher calibre. The way in which PSNI conditions certain firearms for certain types of quarry has, over the years, been problematic to say the least. Generally, when applying for their first firearms certificate or even submitting a re-grant, applicants simply write "sporting purposes". However, the phrase "sporting purposes" has caused a considerable amount of confusion over the years. Neither the Firearms Order 2004 nor the guidance on Northern Ireland firearm controls defines its meaning, and the PSNI has refused on many occasions to give its definition of "sporting purposes", which we now know to be for clay targets, game and wildfowling. The ambiguity around the phrase "sporting purposes" means that a significant number of applications have been sent back to the applicant, asking them to define what they mean by that phrase.

The Home Office guidance to police dated March 2015 emphasises the use of the "any lawful quarry" condition. Indeed, many of the constabularies in GB are moving to that. Paragraph 10.38 of the Home Office document states:

Paragraph 13.9 of the guidance also states:

It goes on to state:

In Northern Ireland, game birds, such as ducks, geese and waders, deer and pest birds are all regulated by either the Game Preservation Act (Northern Ireland) 1928, the Wildlife (Northern Ireland) Order 1985, or by general licences that are issued annually by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. That being the case, there is no need to further regulate the quarry species that a person may shoot by applying specific conditions to a firearms certificate. Indeed, removing this level of bureaucracy would help to reduce the administrative burden on PSNI firearms and explosives branch, which, in turn, would allow it to focus its resources more effectively on areas where the branch has genuine concerns.

We respectfully ask the Committee to support our proposal for the banded system going forward. I will now pass back to David, who will brief you on our proposals for fees.

Mr D Robinson: We have adopted a holistic approach to the issue of fees, including efficiencies in the system and the service that is provided. We have considered not only our system but the model that is used by the 42 constabularies in GB. We have examined very carefully the last two very informative reports by Mr Benny Mathews from DFP's business consultancy service, which gave us further insight into the internal workings of the PSNI licensing system.

We remain keenly aware of the statement by Chief Constable Andy Marsh, the chairman of the firearms and explosives licensing working group at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). I am aware that it has now changed its name to the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC). For now, I will refer to it as ACPO. He is the chairman of that working group and is also the Chief Constable of Hampshire Constabulary. He has stated that the shooting community should not pay for an inefficient system. For this reason and others, we cannot support real cost recovery at this time. We believe our proposal to be reasonable and workable and that it will help to drive inefficiencies and red tape out of the system. Our proposal will allow the PSNI access to significantly more revenue than the 42 constabularies in GB. Our proposal will also allow everyone to step back from what has become a very heated situation and regain objective focus on the very important issue of firearms licensing. Our proposal is based on the granting and re-granting of a certificate, not a fee for an application. In the very near future, we expect to see a significant decrease in the amount of information that is being repeatedly required on firearms licensing forms where the PSNI already hold the data.

I want to bring your attention to pages 4 and 5 of the supplied aide-memoire. I will quickly take you through those; I think that they are probably best viewed together. You will see that the tabulation is quite simply the current Northern Ireland fee, what the DOJ is currently proposing, and the new current fee in GB. That new GB fee came into force only last month. It was the culmination of two years' work, which included three Departments, including the Home Office and the Prime Minister's Office. It also included ACPO and 16 stakeholders. This was not a bit of work; it was a substantial amount of work on what the cost of a licence should be in an efficient system. I just wanted to make that point on the current GB fee.

The right-hand column is self-explanatory; it is our proposal. If you look to note 1, you will see that, in real terms, this produces a much higher income for the PSNI than the 42 constabularies in GB, where the firearms certificate (FAC) renewal is only £62. The grant of a shotgun certificate is £79·50 and the renewal of a shotgun certificate is £49. I will give you the examples. In our proposal, for the granting of a firearms certificate in Northern Ireland followed by two renewals — re-grants, or whatever you want to call them, because they basically have the same criteria now — the PSNI would end up with £264. The other 42 constabularies end up with £212 for the same grant followed by two renewals. In GB, if you only had shotguns and a shotgun permit, again, if you had the grant followed by two renewals, you would end up paying £177·50. You can see that the money on offer to the PSNI to produce an efficient licensing system is way in front of what the 42 constabularies in GB are given.

I want to point out that all the fees you are reading have been inflation-proofed by us in our proposal at a rate of 2·5% per year for the next five years, with the exception of the grant and the re-grant fee — the one I have just read out — and the examples I have just given you. They are being given substantially more money to do the same job as the other 42 constabularies and that, therefore, did not need to be inflation-proofed for those five years. Everything else is inflation-proofed.

The fee for the grant and re-grant of a registered firearms dealer certificate is currently £150. The Department's proposed fee is £830. After its first review, the Department came up with £697 for a dealer's licence. That was reviewed, and they came up with £528. It was reviewed again, and the recommendation was £830. The Minister has stated that he would like it reviewed again and, in the interim, he wants £300. Yet, when the Department's officials appear here, they say there can be no more efficiencies. As these figures show, there are always more efficiencies when they are pressed.

You will often hear the GB fee being quoted as £200, so you will wonder why the new GB fee came out at £333. The point that I would make there is that a shotgun permit and a firearms certificate in GB is for five years but a dealer's licence is for three, so the £200 is for a three-year licence. When you flip that into our five-year licence, that is why we have quoted the new GB fee at £333: it is based on a five-year cycle. Our proposal of £380 is that £333, inflation-proofed at 2·5% for five years.

The fee for a registered firearms club is £80, and the DOJ proposal is £71. The current GB fee is £84, and our proposal is £95. A one-on, one-off variation by the PSNI costs £10, and the DOJ proposal is £15. In the other 42 constabularies, there is no fee. There is no fee for any variation in GB where you do not increase the holding of your firearms. So, if it is a one-on, one-off, there is no fee, and if it is a one-off, there is no fee. You pay a fee only if a variation increases the holding of your firearms. We have proposed £17, inflation-proofed. That is more revenue that the PSNI is getting that the GB forces are not. A one-on, one-off variation by a registered firearms dealer, which includes —

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): I do not want to interrupt you, but we have this information in front of us. I would rather have more time for questions if you do not mind, rather than go over stuff that is in front of us. I suspect that people will want to get into the detail.

Mr D Robinson: That is fine. I was hoping that people would interrupt me as I went along. As the Chairman quite rightly says, you have the information. There is a summary at the bottom of the increases. A point to note is the yellow bit at the bottom of page 5, where it states that the latest DFP business consultancy service review completed on 24 April noted that only 14 of the 29 firearms enquiry officers (FEOs) are required for firearms licensing duties. Therefore, the salaries of 15 of them, over half of the FEOs, cannot be billed to shooters, because they are not doing anything that is chargeable to shooters. Over the five-year span of a licence, that amounts to a saving of £1·8 million.

Further, since 2014 there has been no head of branch at PSNI FEB. The deputy has been running the branch. If that situation remains the same, that £1·8 million becomes £2 million of a saving over a five-year period.

In its raison d'être for reviewing the licence fees in the first place, the Department quoted the figure of 36%. First, that 36%, as is painfully obvious to all concerned, including themselves now, was 36% of a very inefficient system, and it was heavily quoted by ACPO; it was the use of agency staff, a lot of whom worked in the firearms licensing system, which was very heavily criticised by the PAC report on 26 March last year. When you consider that over half the FEOs can no longer be charged for and there is no head of branch in there, and you are talking about £2 million, those are not insignificant figures. Inefficiencies can be found when people are driven to them.

That is the end of my presentation, Mr Chairman, on fees.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): Thank you very much, and thank you for the handout. It is very useful to have this in front of us as it goes into quite a bit of detail on the three areas of young shooters' fees and the banded system. It makes your position very clear.

I want to ask a couple of questions. I am going to avoid the banded system and its detail, because I suspect that other members who are a little bit more au fait with the calibres and what have you will go into some detail on that. I think that people who are not involved in shooting have more concerns around young shooters. I note the fact that, in GB, there is no age limit. I also note the fact that you have compromised on that issue and looked to have the supervision. Sammy asked earlier about how many people we are talking about. How many young shooters are there in Northern Ireland and what sort of ages are we talking about?

Mr Mayne: I will answer that, Chair, if you do not mind. I noted a few questions that were not answered. I will answer them in the order that I noted them.

To put it in context for you, there are roughly 59,500 FAC holders in Northern Ireland. Approximately 157 are teenagers, and that is according to the last statistics released that I am aware of. You can get a firearms certificate at 16. The average age of a firearms certificate holder is 53. Roughly 2% of the 59,500 are female.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): I appreciate that Patsy said that much of this is passed from generation to generation and that is where training takes place. Is there a reason why you do not think that some sort of formal training or some qualification, for want of a better word, would be appropriate?

Mr Mayne: BASC is a training provider. We very much believe in voluntary training. As was mentioned earlier, we run deer stalking certificate (DSC) level 1 courses. However, if we are specifically talking about the mandatory training aspect, the key point is that the Department of Justice has signed up to the Northern Ireland Better Regulation Strategy. The Better Regulation Strategy promotes five guiding principles of better regulation. The first guiding principle is proportionality. Mandatory testing fails the first guiding principle of the Better Regulation Strategy in that it is totally disproportionate to any perceived problem, because that is what we are talking about: we are talking about a perceived problem. Indeed, BASC and the Ulster Farmers' Union wrote jointly to the Justice Minister some time ago to highlight that fact. I will pass you a copy of that joint letter.

I will comment on BASC's insurance records, and I am sure that Lyall will be happy to comment on his. Our insurance records show that no personal injuries to or due to our members occurred in Northern Ireland from the use of firearms for hunting in each of the last 13 years. That reflects the fact that the current mentoring system in Northern Ireland works well. Currently, schedule 1(1)(iii) to the Guidance on Northern Ireland Firearms Controls relates to firearms dealers and the existing requirement for them to:

I noted that Mr Frew commented on standard operating procedures (SOPs). This is basically the current SOPs. Schedule 1(1)(iii), which concerns firearms dealers' responsibilities, states:

Additionally, as I have said, all new firearm certificates come with a supervisory condition, which means that the holder must be supervised by a person aged 21 or over who has held a firearm certificate for at least three years. Generally, that supervisory period is for six months, unless the person with the firearm certificate is 16, in which case it would extend until they were 18.

Article 6(5) of the Guidance on Northern Ireland Firearms Controls states:

— he does —

That mentoring system has not presented any problems. Therefore, we, jointly, question the need to change a system that works.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): That was comprehensively answered.

Mr Mayne: Thank you.

Mr Plant: Countryside Alliance Ireland has no claims for young people carrying out their country sports activities.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): Finally, before I go to Patsy, we are aware of how long this issue has been rumbling on. I am aware that it preceded my chairmanship of the Committee; it has gone on for many years. In terms of your most recent engagement with the Department and the proposals that you have given the Committee here today, have you had any feedback from the Department on whether there is a willingness to support that? Where are we with that at the moment?

Mr Plant: We attended the last fees workshop. We have not submitted our proposals to the Department as yet, but we are going to email them to it tomorrow. There has been a failure on behalf of the Department to even discuss the possibility of young people shooting any lawful quarry. We, as an organisation, have been working on it for the last 12 years, and we continue to come up against that stance.

Mr McGlone: I will be relatively brief and will emphasise your point. It has taken us an incredible amount of time to get to this point. I am sure that your patience has been severely tested on different occasions. We have discussed this issue time and again. I am really glad that you have taken Tony O'Reilly's advice: "Don't bring me problems; bring me solutions". It is really laid out there. It is easily understood. I will come to that in a wee minute.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): I love the definition of "easily understood". [Laughter.]

Mr McGlone: It should be at the Department, anyway.

You mentioned that there are 29 FEOs, 14 of whom are actively out on the ground. For everybody else, I say that the FEOs are the people who check the suitability of land and premises for holding firearms, and they check whether people are safely and securely storing their firearms when an application is made or a re-grant is sought. Those 14 cover 11 district council areas. It is incredible that it takes even that many people to cover those district council areas given that you do not have 59,000 applications for variations or re-grants every year; it is a cycle of five years. I find that unusual, but my question is this: what are the other 15 doing?

Mr D Robinson: I will answer that in two parts, Mr McGlone. To be fair to Mr Matthews from the business consultancy service at DFP, he did great work on this. He concluded and put it in writing that the command and control of those 29 FEOs is virtually non-existent. He was time-limited in his report, which always seems to be another problem. His conclusions on the FEOs are based on the information supplied to him by PSNI FEB and his personal observations. He went out with seven FEOs and, for want of a better term, did a time-and-motion study. He came up with the finding that, for the work being done in the licensing system, 14 properly motivated and controlled FEOs can do the job, as far as what is chargeable to the licensing system is concerned. There are other things like the ballistic testing of handguns where the police enforcement and so on are not chargeable to the system. In case there are more than 15 FEOs watching, I will say that I am not aware that there is any rush to suddenly fire 15 of these FEOs. They are going to be used in the system for other roles that are not chargeable to the Northern Ireland shooting community.

Mr McGlone: That is grand. The point is well made.

Thanks very much for the work that you have done on fees. As was suggested by the previous speaker, everybody accepts that there has to be a fee to cover costs and the like of that. However, you have done it in a very logical way and have clearly put a lot of work into it.

Are you aware of any centre for information on firearms and explosives (CIFEx) documents or exchanges around the issue of banding? I ask you that in the context that you have had numerous meetings with DOJ officials and others. Are you aware of any exchanges that were research-based, which means evidence grounded in fact and science, that have been used to come to conclusions around these bandings? The bandings that you have come up with make perfect sense to me. I am not speaking as a person with a huge amount of knowledge of this, but I probably have enough to know. It makes huge sense to me. Are you aware of whether the documentation or the stuff that was referred to and that we were supposed to get at this Committee actually exists? Has it been referred to at any stage of preparation of the proposed bandings?

Mr Plant: At our last workshop, when we were talking about the banded system, we asked the question again. We were informed that there was no written report on CIFEx. It was only a verbal report that was received and formulated the banded system.

Mr McGlone: Ah; right. Chair, we would need to follow that up with the officials or, more importantly, the Department. If incorrect or, dare I say it, misleading information was given to a Committee, that would be a very serious issue. Thank you for that.

Finally, I think that you have covered young shooters pretty well. However, I want to test, to use the word, mandatory testing. Can you give me the experience? Earlier, we heard evidence that this would be important, useful and all of that. Can you give me the experience of the incidence of fatalities or injuries in any of the mainland European countries where mandatory testing has taken place? We have heard already that, in terms of claims, both your organisations have been incident free. I am aware that there is another organisation that covers insurance in the North as well, the Scottish association. Can you give me any figures? Do you have any indication of a comparison with GB or the European mainland where mandatory testing has been introduced? I am concerned about safety, and obviously you are too. It does not matter whether it is on the roads, in shooting, in the use of electricity or anything else, you are always concerned about the safety of individuals. You also want to find out if the theory of mandatory testing actually works, because, at the same time, we do not want it to become an exclusive sport that has fewer people participating in it.

Mr Mayne: First, mandatory testing makes no contribution to public safety because it seeks to solve a problem that does not exist at this point. However, on the specifics of your question, Mr McGlone, France has a mandatory testing regime, and, in 2013-14, 43 people were killed whilst hunting.

Mr McGlone: Presumably, that is not through an animal hitting them but is as a result of a firearm.

Mr Mayne: Correct.

Mr McGlone: And it has mandatory testing.

Mr Mayne: Yes.

Mr McGlone: Can we benchmark that against England, Scotland or Wales, where they do not have the mandatory testing system?

Mr Mayne: Conversely, the UK has no mandatory testing regime, and only two people were killed unintentionally in 2011.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): Where do you get those figures from?

Mr Mayne: From head office.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): Do you have pan-European figures on that? I am always a wee bit cautious about picking out one country.

Mr Mayne: We have a firearms department at head office that has information like that.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): You could maybe share that with us. It would be useful for benchmarking.

Mr Mayne: Certainly. No problem.

Mr Dickson: It would be interesting to get those figures, because I appreciate the very serious nature of the information that you have given us. Are there substantially more licensed firearms in France than in Northern Ireland or the rest of the United Kingdom per head of population?

Mr D Robinson: It would not vary that much other than that ours is skewed slightly by air rifles. We have more firearm certificate holders because we hold air rifles.

Mr Dickson: My perception is that, on a like-for-like basis, France would have a substantially larger number.

Mr D Robinson: The country is four times the size, but the population is the same.

Mr McGlone: As the UK?

Mr D Robinson: Yes.

Mr Dickson: As you have figures, it would be very helpful for the Committee to have a look at those.

You referred to exchanges. Do you see any risks to dealers in doing that rather than how it is done in the current situation?

Mr D Robinson: No. The current variation fee is £26. We are talking about not turning this into a rich man's sport. One significant thing about the two years of work in GB is that its fee was the same and it reduced it to £20. I thought that that was very significant. The Department here is saying that it can grant a firearm certificate for £98. It can go through all that process for £98, but, if you want to vary your firearm certificate — a very simple variation — it will cost you £89.

Mr Dickson: We are talking about exchanges. Your proposal is that dealers will deal with that. How are the public protected in that?

Mr D Robinson: In what sense, Mr Dickson?

Mr Dickson: In the sense that you are conducting the exchanges rather than the exchange being dealt with directly by the PSNI.

Mr D Robinson: We currently do one-on-one-offs for shotguns anyway and for any gun with the same calibre. There is no public safety issue with this. The thing is agreeing the band. In our proposal, if you apply for a fox-calibre gun as your first fox-calibre rifle, once you have been through that vetting process by the PSNI, it will grant you permission for any of those calibres.

Mr Dickson: I understand that.

Mr D Robinson: Then you have the six-month supervision. If you move from one band to another, there is another six-month supervision. It is not the case that a guy gets a six-month supervision when he is 18 and goes from an air rifle to a fox calibre to a deer calibre. More six-month periods are slotted in.

Mr Dickson: That is very helpful.

I will move on to the issue of the age of young shooters. You have suggested that a compromise is 11 rather than 10. Surely, it is important that there is public confidence in any changes. That goes right across all of what is being proposed here. I go back to your own figures and information, when you said that there have been no accidents and no major incidents. Any dilution should therefore be of concern not only to the public but to you, given the high reputation you currently hold. You must surely jealously wish to guard your reputation, and if any change led to an incident, all that you have been trying to do would be undone.

Mr Plant: I completely agree. Our aim is public safety, and not only public safety, but the safety of the young person and of the supervisor. That is why we proposed an increase of the supervisory age to 25 years and the experience to five years, meaning that the person would have held a firearms certificate for a full term and been re-granted with a second firearms certificate. The level of expertise is therefore higher than it is currently.

Mr Dickson: But that five years holding of the licence does not require any training.

Mr Plant: Yes, it does. That person still has to undergo a six-month probationary period when he first gets his firearms certificate.

Mr Dickson: But four years on from that —

Mr D Robinson: He is gaining experience.

Mr Dickson: He may not have lifted the rifle the entire time.

Mr D Robinson: I have heard it mentioned before that he might only fire 100 shots. Part of the good reason for holding a firearm is that you are going to use it. If his licence goes in at the end of the first five years and no ammunition has been bought for it, he has failed to demonstrate good reason and the renewal will be in question.

Mr Dickson: That is very important. The renewal is at least in part conditional on the level of usage of the weapon.

Mr Mayne: With respect, I will correct Mr Dickson. He used the term rifle in relation to young shooters and supervision. We are not talking about rifles; we are talking about air rifles and shotguns and a clause stipulating that a supervisor be 25 and have five years' experience. We are not talking about bullet-firing rifles.

Mr Dickson: I think that the Department is trying to demonstrate caution in any potential age change, and it goes back, perhaps, to the issue we talked about when it came to deer hunting, namely the level of maturity and the change point in people's lives. In Northern Ireland, young people change from elementary/primary to secondary school at 12. They are still there at 11. The thought of a young person saying, "I am going to get a firearms licence" to their fellow pupils at primary school seems to me quite concerning. Perhaps it should be left to the point when somebody moves to secondary school.

Mr Mayne: We are not talking about giving firearms certificates to 10-year-olds. We are simply talking about letting them shoot under the supervision of a responsible supervisor.

Mr Dickson: Even that commentary amongst their peers —

Mr Mayne: Lyall said earlier that we said that there had been no issues across GB. It was actually the Department that said that when they looked at GB they could find no evidence. It was not us said that; it was the Department. If we look at GB as a benchmark and any problems that have been encountered there — there have been none that the Department can produce — we have to question why we are holding things up here and saying 12. I can still recall the Department's position back in a meeting in my office last year. It was, "12 — take it or leave it." That was the phrase that was used.

Mr Dickson: I go back to the point that I raised with the gentleman from the Northern Ireland Deer Society earlier on. Can you understand that, for the vast majority of people, who have no knowledge or understanding of what goes on in your particular areas of sport or sports, the thought, for example — I know you are not actually proposing this — of reducing the age from twelve to zero would fill them with horror? Therefore, any change in age has to be sensitively and robustly defended.

Mr D Robinson: Mr Dickson, if I can just say to you, the Firearms Acts have been in force in England since 1968 and, as far as I can determine from Google, 244 Chief Constables have been appointed to the various police forces in England since that year. Not one of them has expressed a worry about young people shooting. I would also say that you should not get hung up on the age of 11. We did not want it to be 11.

Mr Dickson: You wanted it to be 10.

Mr D Robinson: Precisely. The only reason that 11 is being offered is as a compromise. Further, clay target shooting was never part of a consultation process by the Department; it was news to us when presented to this Committee on 18 June last year. It was not even consulted on.

Mr Dickson: But allowing 10-year-olds access to weapons is something which would cause a great deal of concern to the general public, in my view.

Mr Plant: Mr Dickson, I do not think so. I do not believe so. Not if it is correctly handled and publicised and the supervisory criteria are in place. I would prefer that they are not called "weapons", they are called "firearms". Firearms are for shooting and sporting purposes.

Mr D Robinson: Another small point I make to you, Mr Dickson, is that we are not suggesting that this becomes mandatory. First of all the young person has to want to go shooting; they have to have parental consent; they have to find a supervisor who is prepared to supervise young individuals. This is about freedom of choice and parental control.

Mr Dickson: To that extent, what pressure is on you from parents — or, indeed, young people who think that they can persuade their parents to allow them to take up shooting at the age of 10 or 11?

Mr Mayne: There is a very significant desire for a change of legislation that would allow young people to shoot under supervision.

Mr Dickson: Can you enumerate that or demonstrate it to us?

Mr Mayne: BASC is the largest shooting organisation in the UK, with a membership of over 140,000, and I have yet to meet somebody who says no. Furthermore, to go back to the point that you raised that the public would be horrified, or words to that effect, about there being no minimum age, I disagree, with respect. The no-minimum-age scenario exists already, within the controlled environment of a PSNI gun club, which is a bullet-firing club. There is no minimum age there.

Mr D Robinson: Can I also say to you, Mr Dickson, if you are talking about demand: where did the Department get its demand for clay target shooters? We are not against that. We are saying that everybody should be on an equal footing. We are just trying to stop the discrimination that is there from continuing. When you talk about demand, I can say this to you in relation to 16- and 17-year-olds. Thirty-two 16- and 17-year-olds have firearms certificates in Northern Ireland currently, as we speak. Some 11 of those certificates are conditioned for the protection of livestock, which leaves 21 16- and 17-year-olds who have licences under the umbrella condition of "sporting purposes". "Sporting purposes" includes clay target shooting, game shooting and wildfowling. So the number of 16- and 17-year-olds who hold a firearm certificate for clay shooting could be zero or 21. I just do not know. However, if you are talking about levels of demand, we might ask where the Department came up with its figures for the demand for clay target shooting.

Mr Mayne: If I could just comment in relation to the last answer to Mr Dickson about bullet-firing clubs, the Minister's current position is that the police will regulate bullet-firing clubs under article 49 of the guidance. That is currently the case. The proposal is that they will regulate clay target clubs under the same article. However, as I have already said, the anomaly is that there is currently no minimum age for a bullet-firing club, but the Department is trying to introduce a minimum age of 12 for a clay target club that it intends to regulate under the same article, which does not make sense.

Mr Dickson: I am slightly confused. I really need to understand what a bullet-firing club is. What you are saying is that very young children could have access to guns and use them, albeit in a very controlled environment.

Mr Mayne: A bullet-firing club is a PSNI-approved gun club that shoots on an approved range. There is no minimum age restriction, and it has never caused any problem. However, the clubs generally regulate themselves and apply a minimum age when they need to, depending on the type of firearm, size of the young person, psychological ability and all of the rest of it, which is assessed by a supervisor. There is a requirement under article 49 for one-on-one supervision. However, to put it in context for you, that is the way that an existing bullet-firing club operates now. If we were on, let us say, Baronscourt range in County Tyrone, and we were firing bullet-firing firearms into the targets and the sandpit, there would be no minimum age. The supervision criterion is that the supervisor has to be a full member of the club. That is it. It is very straightforward, with no problem. It works. However, under the Department's proposal, we would then step out of that to go and shoot shotguns, where there would be a minimum age of 12 and there would be some sort of qualification or training required for the supervisor. It is absolute madness.

Mr Dickson: If you are telling me that it is madness because there is no minimum age, I entirely agree with you.

Mr Mayne: No; not at all. I am saying that there is a criterion that is applicable to bullet-firing clubs at the minute, and it has never caused any problem. What the Department is proposing to do is introduce a minimum age where there is no problem. Again, it is contrary to the better regulation strategy, which the Department has signed up to.

Mr Dickson: I appreciate the better regulation strategy, but I am coming at it from a member of the general public's perspective and I have serious concerns about it. That is my view on it.

Mr McCartney: There are two things on the fees. In the proposals as outlined, the two big gaps seem to be for the dealers. The Department wants £820 and you proposed £380. How many dealers are there?

Mr D Robinson: That is interesting, because this time last year there were 108 and today there are 92, so we have lost 16 dealers in a year. It is a mixture of the unresolved firearms dealer security spec and this fees issue going on and on. Does the guy want to pay the fee and then get hit with some draconian dealer security spec? The Minister and the Department have not moved on looking at the categories of dealers, so there is a whole mix going on in there. The Minister is going to call the consultant in again to review all of that. Frankly, where does it stop? Where do we produce an actual proposal? As things stand at the minute, the Department has no proposal for a banded system and no complete proposal for fees, so we are sitting here today with our proposed solutions to those issues.

Mr McCartney: But the current gap is about £45,000.

Mr D Robinson: Yes, but the thing that you have to bear in mind is that the fees that we are proposing amount to more money than was given to the other 42 constabularies to become efficient. There are new fees in there. That is what I meant about a holistic approach, in the sense that, if you are going to use the system more often, we propose that you will pay more.

Mr McCartney: How many variations did the PSNI carry out?

Mr D Robinson: Four thousand.

Mr McCartney: So the gap there is about £250,000.

Mr D Robinson: Yes. I refer you back to the yellow bit at the bottom of page 5. Where does that start getting anywhere close to their figures of 36% in terms of running a budget? One of the ludicrous things, which some of you may notice when you have time to study the fees, is that they do not mention a 10-year licence, because the Department has come up with a figure of £98 for a five-year licence, but if you want a 10-year licence it is £266.

Mr McCartney: As you said, it has been going on for a long time, and even today we are back around many of the same issues, but at least your proposal is going to the Department tomorrow and we will try to see — [Inaudible.]

The only two gaps in the chart laid out seem to be dealers and the variations, so it is about how you narrow that, but if you tot up the other figures, some of your proposals are higher than the Department's. If the figures are totted up, do they equalise?

Mr D Robinson: The thing is that we have looked at the thing holistically, as I said. Bear in mind that the Department is quoting figures that are totally ridiculous. They casually missed £1·8 million when the employee threshold is 64. We brought this to the attention of the Committee, and, in fact, you and I had an exchange about the use of firearms enquiry officers back in February 2013. The point we are making in our approach to this is that here is a workable, feasible proposal from our point of view. We have looked at everything in the round. If you look at it the other way — you know, one-on, one-off variations — we are saying 17, including the banded system operated by dealers. Dealers currently do 5,000 a year one-on, one-off variations. At £12 over 5 years, that is £300,000 which they have not got now, and we are offering them more money than all the other constabularies put together at £50 an application. It is not a case, Mr McCartney, of looking at whether that one is different from this one, so that is only where it has to be closed. We did this in the round, so that the more often you use the system the more you pay. It is not as clear cut as that they are saying £830 and we are saying £380.

Mr McCartney: I appreciate that. In terms of trying to bridge the gap, there is not going to be any meeting of minds on those two figures I have laid out. I imagine the Department will accept the other proposals.

Mr Plant: For example, the Department's variation feed carried out by the PSNI at £89·03. A person goes into a registered firearms dealer and wants to buy an air rifle at £90, then he is asked for another £90 to put it on his licence. That makes the air rifle too expensive and precludes people from starting out in the sport or taking up a new activity. As Mr McGlone said, we cannot make it exclusive. It has to be available to everyone, and it has to be affordable for everyone. We believe that the work that has been done on these fees by David and us has delivered a workable solution.

Mr D Robinson: The other thing I would mention, Mr McCartney, is Murphy's law, or the law of unintended consequences. The Department is pricing the licensing system that is now in place, but we are taking into consideration the banded system for licensing that, in some description, will be in place. The other thing is that it will be in place for five years, because that will allow the PSNI licensing system to become more efficient and help push it down that road. Furthermore, the system that is in place in GB will be tested by then. It will have been in place for two or three years. They are going to review it. There are substantial rises in there — even the Minister himself recognises that there is something wrong with the dealer's fee — but after three reviews, where does it all stop? What we are proposing is to draw a line under this for five years. There is a workable fees proposal in there, far in excess of what any of the 42 GB forces got, and if the PSNI decides to become efficient, the cost of the firearms licensing system will certainly be covered.

Mr McCartney: I just make the general point, but after these proposals go in tomorrow there is not much more room for discussion. Whatever happens after tomorrow, there will have to be decisions. That is the broad point. The gaps in all the other proposals from you and the Department are not great; the only two big gaps are the dealers and the variation.

Mr Plant: Which is counteracted by only having to pay for half of the firearms enquiry officers.

Mr McCartney: I am not making the case for the Department. All I am saying is that you have to resolve that, or we will be back in the same place —

Mr D Robinson: The point I am making is that we imagine that the number of those variations drop, because of the unresolved issues with the dealer security spec and the fact that there no fees are in place. Sixteen small dealers handing in their licence in the last year is not an insignificant number out of a total of 108.

In terms of the dealers, that is not a lot of money, and we have made allowances for it. Currently we are doing 5,000, and if you look at the difference and the fact that we are agreeing to a £12 variation fee, which is currently free for dealers, which will generate £300,000, your two queries are negated. Plus, there is a cost saving of £1·8 million, which could well be £2 million. That is before we get into things like postage and —

Mr D Robinson: Electronic things.

Mr McCartney: All I am saying is that your proposals so far look fine, but there are two gaps that you have to fill between yourselves and the Department.

Mr Mayne: We need to bear in mind that the Department gets its motivation from DFP guidance, 'Managing Public Money NI', when it comes to going for full cost recovery. We also need to be cognisant of the fact that that same document sets the standards that a public service must meet. Those standards are understood to be fairly high and include accountability, transparency, openness, fairness, objectivity etc. The members of the Justice Committee who are also members of the all-party group on country sports know the background to some of these issues, which have been ongoing for a considerable number of years. For example, David spoke very briefly on the firearms dealer security spec. We have said all along, since it was introduced in 2012, that that security specification was inappropriate. The police have now realised that it is inappropriate for small dealers, and they made that comment at the last meeting on 15 May. As far as they are concerned, it is dead in the water. However, the fact remains — how many dealers have we lost?

Mr D Robinson: Sixteen in the last year.

Mr Mayne: Sixteen dealers over the last year.

Mr D Robinson: We had 119 when this process started, and we are down to 92.

Mr Mayne: That security spec will ultimately have been responsible for putting, not all, but a number of those dealers out of business. That is a very damning indictment of the PSNI FAB.

Mr Frew: All the issues have been covered around the young shooters. Certainly, I have no problems or qualms with there being no age limit, under the strict supervision and scrutiny that comes with the trade and the way that it is administered. You are quite right: if there is no problem, why are we legislating or administrating something for it? I have no problems there.

I want to concentrate on the actual cost recovery. Mr Mayne just raised the responsibility of a Government Department. We hear all the time that there are certain pressures on Departments around cost recovery. You have been dealing with this since long before even I became involved in politics, which was 10 years ago. How could they come up with three sets of figures in three reviews, and then want to go through a fourth review with numbers that are nowhere near the same? You talked about a 500 figure, a 700 figure and an 800 figure.

Mr D Robinson: The original one was 697, and the second one was 528. Now we are at 830, and the Minister wants to review it again. I had lost the will to live at that point, so we went ahead and worked it out ourselves. How many tens of thousands of pounds of public and private money, and how much public and private time, have to be wasted to come to a conclusion on this? I know for a fact that we have, and I am absolutely sure that you have, other equally important things to be getting on with. How long is this going to drag on for? We have bent over backwards and jumped through every hoop for the Department and the police. There has been no genuine engagement on their part. The Department and the PSNI repeat the term "public safety" like a mantra but never explain it on a specific issue. I ask this Committee to ask them to produce any document where they laid out their problems with any band. I defy them to produce that to this Committee, because it never happened.

You talk about 2011, but this has been going on since 1995. This sticking-plaster approach has been going on 20 years. I have said this before, but until the formation of this Assembly and this Committee and the all-party group on country sports, we were the only people who said, "Let's try and fix this." I know that, on a much grander scale, people refer to the legacy of the past on some very extraordinary important issues. Well, so is this. The firearms licensing system is a legacy of the past; it is a disaster, and it needs to be sorted out. Even when it was written, Lady Hermon, not known for her shooting prowess, said it was one of the worst bits of draftsmanship that she had ever seen, and she was absolutely right.

Mr Frew: Given the draftsmanship or not, what I find when I try to deal with the PSNI on individual licensing cases and also on interaction with dealers — some of whom, I know, have gone out of business for one reason or another — trying to get a human face to talk to, or to get relevant information, is very difficult and fills you with nothing but frustration. There is no human face, and they turn their face away from you when you do get one. They do not seem to be accountable to anyone and they seem to do their own thing at their own speed. As far as I can see, it is basically crippling and stifling the industry, the trade, the sport or all three. And that is just the PSNI. Here we have the DOJ, which seems to think that it is justifiable to state that full cost recovery will be in the region of £800 for the grant and re-grant for the registered firearms dealers yet in GB it is nowhere near that. My question is not whether this is full cost recovery; my question is how we are running a system that is costing so much. I know that I am asking the wrong people, but in your opinion — I think you cover a part of that in the bit highlighted in yellow on the second page — how did we ever get into this mess, whereby we cannot run an efficient and effective service in the licensing and registering of our firearms and our firearms dealers?

Mr D Robinson: Mr Frew, from my experience in this, it has always been a sticking-plaster solution. Historically, in the days of direct rule, the Departments and the police could trundle along to a direct rule Minister and say "That is what we need," and it was signed off on. There was no public scrutiny of these decisions, and no opinion sought. If they got them, they could be easily ignored. The system has just been allowed to bump along. Take the 2005 Order; the first date on it was actually 2002. That legislation had been reviewed since 1995 to get to that point. They still could not get it in. Basically what happened, at the end of it all, was that they looked at the GB legislation because, somewhere, somebody along the line gave them a kick up the backside, and they grabbed bits of GB legislation and slammed it into the 2002 Order and it became the 2004 Order, which they could not even enact in 2004 it did not actually become law until 2005. There has been this piecemeal approach. Frankly, while we have been dealing with these issues, if you were asking me the bigger question — which I know to be a fact and sincerely believe — the whole firearms licensing system in Northern Ireland needs to be overhauled from start to finish. I assure you that, had I won the £13·5 million on the lottery last night, I would be spending a few of those millions on judicial review — and I would win, because you can drive a horse and carriage through it.

Mr Frew: The table of fees that you have produced is very easy to read, and you have very kindly highlighted and noted it on a second page. It really depends on the banded system that you also propose. It is connected; the two cannot be disengaged.

Mr D Robinson: In terms of the holistic approach, we looked at the fees; the realism of operating in Northern Ireland; the GB system; efficiency; and the service being provided that perhaps other jurisdictions did not have. In some ways, you could say that they run a two-tier system in England which is even more inefficient than what we have.

Between us, we debated a lot of issues. They are connected to things like the banded system. If it is £89 for a variation without a banded system, you will have no more issues with firearms-certificate holders because there will not be any left in Northern Ireland. It will kill this sport and this business. It will be dead in the water. If the working man has to pay that to change a single-barrelled shotgun, then it is just a rich man's sport.

Mr Frew: I am content to leave it at that.

Mr Poots: I am sure that your organisations can bring your members with you on your proposals. It strikes me that you are being pretty generous in that there are 11 fees down there and nine of them are more expensive here in Northern Ireland with what you are proposing than they were in the most recent GB fee structure.

Mr D Robinson: With a banded system, we would expect that the 4,000 variations would decrease rapidly because a lot of them would actually be covered by the banded system. There are other issues here. There are certain frames that we would offer. We can do one-on, one-off transactions with dealers to keep those costs as low as possible. With the like of the banded system, we would see the 4,000 variations a year that are currently being done by Lisnasharragh dropping dramatically. Instead of paying £89, they would pay £12.

I think that every responsible shooter recognises that the fees have to go up. I can tell you that historically, up until the 2005 order, the fee was £28·50 for three years. You signed one sheet of paper, you fired it in, and the fee was £9·50 a year. With the 2005 order, it went up to £10 a year and £50 for a five-year licence. To be realistic, the last time that the firearms licence in any degree actually went up in price in Northern Ireland was 25 years ago, in 1990. I do not think that any reasonable person wants anything for nothing. That is besides the £28 million that shooting puts into the Northern Ireland community. I am quite sure that there will be the odd keyboard warrior who will shout if the fee goes up by one penny, but I do not see those keyboard warriors sitting in front of this Committee with a workable proposal.

Mr Poots: I think that the proposals are very reasonable and fair. Quite a number of them — the vast majority of them — are above what is being lifted in GB. [Inaudible.]

with the Department and work with it on that. I do not need to ask any questions about 12-year-olds because that issue was adequately dealt with.

Mr Lynch: I have just a quick question. You said that you have engaged with the Department in a meaningful way. Has it done likewise? Where do you go from here?

Mr Plant: We have engaged with the Department, and it has engaged with us. However, we believe that officials have stuck to their guns. They have remained with their original proposals and are unwilling. Obviously, they are implementing what the Minister wants. We completely understand that. We came back from wanting 10 to 11 to try and make a compromise. We increased the supervisory age from 21 to 25 to see whether we could meet somewhere in the middle.

Mr Lynch: There was no flexibility.

Mr Plant: There was no flexibility on that situation. Regarding fees, we went to the fees meeting and workshop. However, we did not have time to fully digest and look at the fees that were proposed. Therefore, they will get our proposals by email tomorrow.

Mr Mayne: I would just like to reiterate Lyall's comments and also say that with regard to engagement — more importantly, genuine engagement — with both the Department and the police, there have been a number of occasions when the Department has given us extremely short notice of meetings that it has called. We are talking about one or possibly two working days. Given that Lyall and I are the heads of very large representative organisations, that does not really work well with our diary scheduling. We do try to accommodate those meetings where and when we can, but we obviously need considerable flexibility. We have voiced our concerns about the short-notice meetings to both the Department and, more recently, the PSNI, because it did something very similar.

Mr D Robinson: One of the problems from the trade point of view, particularly in relation to Young Shots, is that, quite frankly, the Department is operating under the political direction of the leader of an anti-hunting and anti-shooting party.

Mr McGlone: I would like to thank the representatives for their submissions here today. They have developed for us — and I venture to say for the Department, the PSNI and all of that — a solution. It is now about how we, as a Committee, look at this, assume ownership of it and advance it. I have sat on this Committee discussing this for long enough. The people out there are frustrated. The people on this Committee are frustrated. They really do not want to hear about this again; they want to hear about a solution. The challenge for us is how we advance this with the Department.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): The first thing that we will do is write to the Department with these proposals to get comments on them. Procedurally, it is only fair that we do that. The Committee can then take a decision on what we do and whether we want to bring forward any proposals or amendments to any legislation that would give us an opportunity to do that. However, procedurally, the right thing to do is to write to the Department first with a copy of those proposals. I know that the gentlemen are going to do that tomorrow anyway. To keep ourselves right, we will do it as a Committee and try to get feedback as soon as possible. We can then take a decision based on that response.

Mr McGlone: Just for clarity, before we put it to a vote, do all members see this as a reasonable solution to or compromise on what we are working on?

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): I suspect that all members do not, and one of them is not here. I would not want to make that comment, but I think that it is fair for us, as a Committee, to write to the Department with these proposals and get feedback. I will then be happy to facilitate a discussion among the Committee to see what we do on it.

Mr Poots: It would also be fair to include in any correspondence with the Department that this matter has dragged on long enough. The Department has come forward with its proposals, the representative bodies have come back with their proposals, and there is a difference. However, we need to get to a conclusion. The Committee should be urging the Department to arrive at a conclusion on all these matters and have this matter dispensed with so that people can get on with the business.

Mr McGlone: One other suggestion is that we have an efficient and quick turnaround and response on this, with clarity on that CIFEx issue as well.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): Yes, I have noted that.

Mr McGlone: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Ross): Gentlemen, thank you very much for your time.