The vast majority of European countries have no firearms legislation on hunting and in France there are no background security checks before the granting of a hunting licence, the High Court was told yesterday.
It was a "seriously flawed procedure" for the Irish authorities to allocate firearms certificates to tourists who produced licences or permits from their own country or a European Firearms Pass, Mr Desmond Crofton, administrator with the National Association of Regional Game Councils, said.
Ms Mary Finlay SC, read from an affidavit of Mr Crofton, on the second day of the hearing in which the National Association of Regional Game Councils is seeking restraining orders against two Government Ministers preventing them from issuing firearms licences to foreign tourist shooters.
The association, which has 22,000 members in 875 gun clubs around the State, is seeking an order preventing the Minister for Justice from granting licences to foreign sports people without making any or adequate inquiries as obliged to under the 1925 Firearms Act.
It also wants an order restraining the Minister from allowing the Wild Life Service to issue hunting licences to non-resident shooters.
It submits that the standard form issued by the Office of Public Works and entitled "Application for Irish Firearm(s) Shotgun(s) Only" does not constitute "adequate enquiries" under the meaning of the 1925 Act.
It also wants the High Court to grant an order of prohibition preventing the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht issuing licences to hunt and kill exempted wild mammals and protected wild birds under the same Office of Public Works form.
At the outset of yesterday's hearing, Mr Gerard Hogan SC, for both the Ministers for Justice and Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, gave a formal undertaking on behalf of his clients that there would be no reintroduction of the gun licensing procedures which prevailed prior to June 1996 as long as the current statutory provisions continued to apply.
Ms Finlay, for the association, said possession of a European Firearms Pass and possibly the possession of a licence by a foreign shooter in his own country did not amount to the Irish Minister for Justice sufficiently informing himself as to the suitability of a person to carry a firearm in this State. Because foreign shooters often quickly return home after their holiday in Ireland, there was an added onus on the Minister to make sure they were properly vetted before getting permission to shoot here, she said.
In the affidavit, Mr Crofton said many EU countries do not have firearms certificates for hunting grade guns such as shotguns. They had certificates only for hand guns and rifles of military calibre. Many countries did not require the holder to have a firearms certificate even for rifles of military calibre used for hunting.
It was, therefore, a seriously flawed procedure to allocate a firearms certificate if an applicant could produce a licence or permit from their own country and/or a European Firearms Pass.
The possibility of unsuitable persons acquiring a firearms certificate and bringing a gun into Ireland because the provisions of the 1925 Firearms Act were not being complied with was a "time bomb".
Mr Crofton said it was not clear why applications by non-residents to shoot in Ireland could be expeditiously processed when residents had to wait for up to two months for all the checks to be carried out.
The hearing before Mr Justice Quirke is expected to conclude today.