§ Mr. William RossTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table in theOfficial Report to show how many (a) handguns, (b) shotguns, (c) semi-automatic and fully-automatic rifles, (d) machine guns, (e) ammunition and (f) explosives by weight have been recovered from the possession of terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland in each year since 1976 to the latest available date.
§ Mr. Ian Stewart[holding answer 23 March 1989]: Such information as is readily available is contained in the following tables. The tables relate to the number of munitions found by the security forces during the period 1976 to 30 April 1989:
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Firearms found Year Pistols/Revolvers Shotguns Rifles MG/SMGs Total 1976 340 80 275 41 736 1977 209 63 259 32 563 1978 126 46 188 33 393 1979 127 38 104 31 300 1980 89 27 82 25 203 1981 139 44 136 38 357 1982 111 34 118 25 288 1983 87 17 47 15 166 1984 70 28 69 20 187 1985 76 44 47 6 173 1986 61 45 57 11 174 1987 78 58 53 17 206 1988 153 62 215 59 489 19891 38 11 42 27 118
1 To 30 April Note: MG/SMGs refers to machine guns/sub-machine guns.
Year Rounds of ammunition found Explosives found(tons) 1976 70,306 9.7 1977 52,091 1.7 1978 43,512 0.9 1979 46,280 0.9 1980 28,078 0.8 1981 47,127 3.4 1982 41,452 2.3 1983 32,451 1.7 1984 27,211 3.8 1985 13,748 3.3 1986 29,061 2.4 1987 19,796 5.8 1988 105,052 4.7 19891 17,534 0.2 1 To 30 April.