PENALTIES FOR KNIFE offences are to increase from today, following the signing of a commencement order by Minister for Justice Helen McEntee. 

Maximum sentences for four knife and offensive weapons offences have been increased after the signing of the under the Courts, Civil Law, Criminal Law and Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2024.

An offence weapon has been classed by the government as a knife or “an article capable of inflicting serious injury”. Firearms are governed under a separate section of the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act 1990.

Maximum sentences have been raised from five to seven years for three of the offences: possession in a public place of an article intended to cause injury to, incapacitate or intimidate a person; trespass with a knife, weapon of offence or other article which has a blade or sharp point; and production of an article capable of inflicting serious injury.

The offence of the manufacture, importation, sale, hire or loan of prescribed offensive weapons has been increased from 7 years to 10 years.

These changes in the law follow recommendations from the knife crime sub-group of the Expert Forum on Anti-Social Behaviour, which is chaired by the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Fianna Fáil TD James Browne.

Speaking on the increased penalties, McEntee said that it will “help to keep knives and other offensive weapons off the streets”.  

“These amendments reflect the true gravity of the offences in question and will ensure that, in the most serious cases, the courts can impose a sanction that fully matches the crime.

“These latest increases in the criminal penalties available to the judiciary follow on from my earlier doubling of the maximum sentence for assault causing harm, increases to the maximum sentence for conspiracy to murder to life, and increases to the maximum sentence for assaulting a peace officer.”