Press Statement

Preasráiteas

27 June 2022

Go to release: Recorded Crime Q1 2022

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (27 June 2022) published the latest Recorded Crime statistics, which cover Quarter 1 (Q1) 2022 and the full year results.

Commenting on the release, Jim Dalton, Statistician in the Crime & Criminal Justice Section, said: “Recorded Crime statistics for the year ending in March 2022 showed that the number of fraud incidents recorded on An Garda Síochána (AGS)’s PULSE database nearly doubled over the period. There were 17,354 frauds recorded in the 12-month period compared to just 9,219 in the previous year, an increase of 88%. The increase was largely driven by unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone.

Recorded crime for the year to Q1 2022 was generally up on 2021 levels. The highest rates of increase were in Kidnapping & Related Offences (+38%), Offences against Government, Justice Procedures & Organisation of Crime (+24%), Assault Offences (+19%) and Sexual Offences (+13%). In contrast, Homicide & Related Offences fell by 38% over the year as did Controlled Drug Offences (-26%) and Weapons & Explosives Offences (-15%). The figures 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-19.

Just 85 offences were recorded on PULSE for breaches of COVID-19 regulations in Q1 2022. This compares to 311 offences in Q4 2021. The number of offences has significantly reduced from earlier quarters in 2021 where the level of COVID-19 restrictions were much higher compared to the most recent quarters.”

On the issue of cancelled Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) incidents, Jim Dalton, Statistician, said: “An internal AGS investigation into the inappropriate cancellation of calls on its CAD system is continuing. The premature or improper cancellation of incidents on the CAD system may mean that records relating to crimes, which were reported to AGS, were not created on the PULSE system, and are therefore not counted in Recorded Crime statistics. AGS has carried out an interim investigation which focused only on the most serious high risk crimes. These mainly related to Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Health and Missing Persons, which covered the cancellation of about 6,000 incidents dating back to 2019. An incident can be validly cancelled, for example, if multiple calls are received for the same incident. Of the incidents which should not have been cancelled, 143 would have resulted in a criminal incident being recorded on PULSE. All 143 missing PULSE incidents have since been created. In volume terms, this has a very small effect on published Crime Statistics for the 21 month period in question. The CSO awaits the final outcome of AGS investigations into the issue before it can fully determine the impact on Recorded Crime Statistics. The CSO will issue further updates once this information is available.”

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