The number of serious stabbing incidents has almost tripled in the past four years, with 146 such episodes recorded last year, according to figures obtained by Fine Gael.
The party's Justice spokesman, Jim O'Keeffe TD said the figures - which were released to him by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) last month - illustrate the need for an acceptance that there is now a "huge problem" with the use of knives during violent incidents.
He said the figures also reveal that there were 18 murders with knives in 2006 and 128 incidents of assaults causing harm.
This compares to 55 stabbing incidents in 2003, six of which related to either murder or manslaughter, he said. The remainder related to assault causing harm.
In 2004, the total number of such incidents stood at 57, nine of which related to murder or manslaughter, while in 2005 this dropped to 32, with 10 relating to murder or manslaughter. Again, the remainder related to assault causing harm. Mr O'Keeffe said he had sought the information from Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, but received a Dáil reply stating that the figures would be supplied to him by the CSO.
The figures relate to stabbing offences involving murder, manslaughter and assault causing harm in which the injured party was stabbed specifically with a knife.
As news emerged of three more stabbing incidents in Dublin during the weekend, Mr O'Keeffe said the new figures revealed that there were just four convictions and 66 proceedings relating to headline stabbing offences in 2006. This indicated the problems faced by gardaí in tackling such crimes.
"We must accept that there is a huge problem here of serious crime . . . and that it now includes the much greater use of weapons such as knives," he told The Irish Times. "That has to be confronted."
Among the ways this could be done would be by providing more gardaí, better equipment for gardaí, new approaches to sentencing and a review of "best practice" in other counties. The latter could include an examination of the success or otherwise of knife amnesties, he said.
According to the figures supplied to Mr O'Keeffe, there were 10 convictions for stabbing offences in 2003, 14 in 2004 and three in 2005. A total of 30 cases relating to stabbing incidents were also undertaken in 2003, with 37 in 2004 and 21 in 2005.