I would like to commend the Herald for its Bin The Blade campaign.

Knife crime and its threat to our youth is an issue that is at the forefront of my agenda as Justice Minister.

We are all aware of the epidemic of stabbings in Britain. It is something we don't want repeated here.

Both the Garda authorities and myself have targeted the issue, focusing on an approach which is based on education and sanctions.

The gardai have already launched their anti-knife initiative, focusing on educating young people. My function has been to bring in tough new laws which, I hope, will act as a major deterrent.

Amid a range of new laws I introduced in July -- most media attention was on the anti-gang measures -- one piece of legislation was the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009.

In simple terms one key feature in this new law was increasing significantly the maximum penalty for possessing a knife in a public place without good reason or lawful authority.

Imprisonment terms for possessing a knife has gone from 12 months to five years. Equally as important were sweeping new powers of search given to the gardai. Now gardai can search someone if they have reasonable grounds for believing that he or she possess a weapon.

In tandem with the new legislation, samurai swords have been banned from importation and sale. Sadly, the statistics show that young people, mainly in their 20s, make up approximately one third of knife crime offenders.

But we must remember also that the number of knife murders fell from 37 in 2007 to 15 last year.

As I said, if we must educate our young people to avoid carrying weapons. The Garda anti- knife campaign features 12 road show meetings this year complemented by targeted online and media advertising.

The campaign is linked with programmes which support youth workers on youth diversion projects, thereby enabling the campaign message to reach at-risk young people. This work is further strengthened by community gardai who, as part of their functions, visit schools to cover a number of topics such as underage drinking, drugs and bullying. These community gardai have been supplied with the necessary tools to bring the key messages of the campaign into schools around the country.

More generally, all members of An Garda Siochana proactively target public disorder and anti-social behaviour, including knife related crime.

Areas identified as public order hot-spots by local Garda management are the subject of additional foot and mobile patrols.

- Dermot Ahern