The High Court has ruled that a firearms conviction against Tipperary farmer Thomas O’Donnell should be quashed, along with a Garda decision revoking four of his personal firearms certificates.
Mr Justice Mark Dunne found that the District Court had made a fundamental error when it convicted O’Donnell in December 2020 over the operation of a shooting range on his lands near Clonmel.
The prosecution concerned section 4A(18) of the Firearms Act 1925. Although a valid shooting-range authorisation had been in force at the relevant time, the District Court held that breaches of conditions attached to it made the authorisation “null and void”. O’Donnell was sentenced to 180 hours of community service in lieu of ten weeks’ imprisonment.
The High Court rejected that interpretation. Mr Justice Dunne held that the legislation expressly provides that an authorisation continues in force unless formally revoked. A breach of its conditions does not automatically extinguish it. The Act separately creates an offence for failing, without reasonable excuse, to comply with conditions attached to an authorisation.
The judge said confusion had affected the case from the outset, including the wording of the summons and the mixing of separate provisions governing firearm certificates and shooting-range authorisations. He found the statutory error sufficiently fundamental to justify judicial review despite O’Donnell also having a Circuit Court appeal available.
A second issue concerned the Superintendent’s December 2020 decision to revoke four of O’Donnell’s firearms certificates. The High Court found the reasons supplied were inadequate because they did not explain how alleged failings in management of the shooting range meant O’Donnell could not safely possess his own firearms.
The court therefore proposed orders quashing both the conviction and the certificate revocations. Those orders had not yet been finalised in the judgment: the case was listed for May 19, 2026, for final orders and costs.