THE NUMBER OF murders has “nearly doubled” in the 12 months to the end of the second quarter of 2023 compared to the previous year, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

Recorded homicide offences increased by 31% (or up by 17 incidents) in that period compared to the previous year.

Murders, which increased from 24 to 47 incidents, contributed to nearly all of this increase.

The figures were revealed as part of the CSO’s publication of recorded crime statistics for April, May and June 2023.

Offences involving robbery, extortion and hijacking were up by 21% or up 410 to 2,328 incidents.

Recorded crime incidents classed as theft and related offences increased by 25% to 71,284 in the year to the end of Q2 2023.

Theft from shops, which contributed to nearly half of this increase, was up by 27% over the year.

Crime incidents involving “fraud, deception and related offences” were down 37% to 10,300 over the same period, mostly due to a fall in incidents of unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone.

Victims of attempts and threats to murder, assaults, harassment and related offences fell by 2% when compared with the year to Q2 2022.

The number of male victims fell by 1% while the number of female victims fell by 3%.

Most other offence categories of recorded crime increased in the year to Q2 2023, with the largest rates of increase being “damage to property and the environment” (+7% or +1,530), controlled drug offences (+6% or +971) and offences against Government, justice procedures and organisation of crime (+6% or +772).

Sexual offences were up by 1% to 3,658 incidents over the same period.

Commenting on the publication, Jim Dalton, statistician in the CSO’s crime and criminal justice section, said: “Burglary and fraud crimes showed the largest rate of change between 2019 and 2023.

“The number of crime incidents classed as burglary and related offences fell by 46% to 9,004 in Q2 2023 from the 16,583 recorded in the year to Q2 2019.

“By contrast, recorded incidents of fraud, deception and related offences increased by 41% from 7,304 in the year to Q2 2019 to 10,300 in the year to Q2 2023.

“In the intervening period, the number of incidents of this crime reached a high of 16,223 in the 12 months to Q2 2022.

“The rate of change for all other offence types were below 20%.”

Crimes reported to or which become known to An Garda Siochana are recorded as crime incidents if a member determines that, on the balance of probability, a criminal offence defined by law has taken place and there is no credible evidence to the contrary.

The CSO receives a singular data extract from the garda Pulse database each quarter for recorded crime statistics.

Data for 2020 and 2021 for some crime categories are likely to have been influenced by the public health restrictions imposed as a result of Covid.

The figures were released “under reservation”, meaning the CSO notes there are data quality issues in the underlying sources used to compile the statistics and, as such, do not meet the standards required of official statistics published by the office.