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THERE WAS A drop in murders, manslaughters and death by dangerous driving last year but an increase in the number of reported sexual offences.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) today published the recorded crime statistics for 2024, and compared these figures with 2023.
There was a 13% decrease in “homicide and related” offences last year when compared with 2023, falling to 77 incidents.
This category includes murder, manslaughter, infanticide, and dangerous driving causing death.
Elsewhere, there was a 10% decrease in robbery, extortion, and hijacking offences, with 2,353 recorded incidents over the year – a fall in blackmail or extortion accounted for most of this decrease.
Controlled drugs offences were also down 7%, falling to 16,119 incidents in 2024 – this drop was driven largely by decreases in crime incidents involving possession of drugs for sale or supply or for personal use.
This category includes importation or cultivation of drugs and possession for sale or supply.
However, an increase in the number of reported sexual offences was recorded, up 8% when compared to 2023.
There was also a 5% increase in public order offences – the number of recorded public order offences rose by 13% for the Dublin Metropolitan Region and by 5% for the Eastern region.
However, there were little or no percentage change in this offence group for the other regions.
Meanwhile, there was a 3% increase in attempts or threats to murder, assaults and harassments, with 24,513 reported incidents last year.
The number of people recorded as victims the above also rose by 2%.
Some 59% of victims were male in 2024, compared with 41% for female victims.
The number of male victims rose by 4% to 3,438 and the number of female victims remained virtually unchanged at 2,371.
And there was a 2% increase in burglary offences, up to 9,744 incidents, and a 3% increase in theft offences, up to 76,178.
Meanwhile, the CSO figures are no longer “under reservation” as they had been up to Q1 of 2023.
The sole source of data for recorded crime data is the Pulse system used internally by An Garda Siochana.
But in 2014, the Garda Inspectorate report identified quality issues in relation to the recording of data on the PULSE system, leading the CSO to suspend publication of the data.
This led to ongoing reviews and suspensions of publishing data, but it was felt that the absence of regularly produced crime statistics created a vacuum for policymakers and citizens.
As such, the CSO felt that the “over-riding public interest” was best served by the resumption of publishing recorded crime statistics, though categorised as “under reservation” to highlight the quality issues.
This “under reservation” categorisation was lifted in Q1 2023 due to work by gardaí to “advance the assurance levels” of the Garda PULSE data.
“This work has seen the development of quality assurance processes by An Garda Síochána over the period which has culminated in the implementation of a more formal data quality management system,” said a spokesperson for the CSO.
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