The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (03 March 2025) issued an Information Note on Fraud Crime Statistics to accompany the Recorded Crime Q3 2024 release.
The Recorded Crime Q3 2024 release was due to be published in December 2024 but was postponed to allow the CSO engage with An Garda Síochána (AGS) regarding a reported backlog in the recording of potential fraud related crime incidents reported by financial Institutions under Section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2011 on the PULSE system.
Users should be aware that as a result, the Fraud, Deception & Related offences crime series pre and post Q3 2023 are no longer comparable, and this release, Recorded Crime Q3 2024, contains a revised Fraud, Deception and Related Offences series from Q3 2023 onwards based only on fraud crime incidents reported directly to AGS by members of the public. Please see our accompanying Information Note for more details.
The number of recorded crime incidents relating to Burglary & Related offences rose by 10% or 878 individual incidents to 9,981 in the year to Q3 2024. Increases in incidents of non-aggravated burglary accounted for most of this change.
There was a rise of 7% or 5,331 in the number of incidents of Theft & Related offences, with six out of every ten incidents in this increase due to theft from shops.
There were also increases in the number of crime incidents relating to Kidnapping & Related offences (+16%), Weapons & Explosives offences (+11%), and Public Order & Other Social Code offences (+3%).
The number of recorded crime incidents of Homicide & Related offences fell by 12% to 75 incidents in the year to Q3 2024.
Decreases in the number of recorded crime incidents in some other offence categories were also noted, including Controlled Drug offences (-6%), Offences against Government, Justice Procedures & Organisation of Crime (-7%), Robbery, Extortion & Hijacking offences (-2%), and Sexual offences (-1%).
Victims of Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments & Related offences rose by 3% in Q3 2024 when compared with Q3 2023. The number of male victims increased by 3% and the number of female victims was up by 1%.
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (03 March 2025) issued an Information Note on Fraud Crime Statistics to accompany the Recorded Crime Q3 2024 release.
The Recorded Crime Q3 2024 release was due to be published in December 2024 but was postponed to allow the CSO engage with An Garda Síochána (AGS) regarding a reported backlog in the recording of potential fraud related crime incidents reported by financial Institutions under Section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2011on the PULSE system.
Users should be aware that as a result, the Fraud, Deception & Related offences crime series pre and post Q3 2023 are no longer comparable, and this release, Recorded Crime Q3 2024, contains a revised Fraud, Deception and Related Offences series from Q3 2023 onwards based only on fraud crime incidents reported directly to AGS by members of the public. Please see our accompanying Information Note for more details.
The CSO published its fifth CSO Review of the Quality of Recorded Crime Statistics in October 2023. As part of this review the CSO has lifted the ‘Under Reservation’ designation from all Recorded Crime data disseminated after Quarter 1 (Q1) 2023.
Please see Lifting of Under Reservation Categorisation for Recorded Crime Statistics FAQ for further details.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.
Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (03 March 2025) released Recorded Crime Quarter 3 (Q3) 2024.
Commenting on the release, James Dalton, Statistician in the Crime & Criminal Justice Section, said: “Recorded Crime statistics published today for July, August and September (Q3) 2024 showed that the number of recorded crime incidents of Burglary & Related offences and Theft & Related offences increased while those relating to Homicide & Related offences fell in the year to Q3 2024.
Other crimes were up as well including Kidnapping & Related offences, Weapons & Explosives offences, and Public Order & Other Social Code offences. By contrast, there was a decrease in crime incidents involving Controlled Drug offences, Offences against Government, Justice Procedures & Organisation of Crime, Robbery, Extortion & Hijacking offences, and Sexual offences.
Crime Trends in the year to Q3 2024
The number of recorded crime incidents relating to Burglary & Related offences increased by 10% or 878 incidents to 9,981 in the year to Q3 2024. Most of this increase related to incidents involving non-aggravated Burglary.
Recorded crime incidents relating to Theft & Related offences were also up, rising by 7% or 5,331 to 77,260 incidents over the same period with six out of every ten (57%) incidents in this increase due to theft from shops.
There were also increases in the number of crime incidents relating to Kidnapping & Related offences (+16% or 23), Weapons & Explosives offences (+11% or 297), and Public Order & Other Social Code offences (+3% or 769).
By contrast, recorded crime incidents involving Homicide & Related offences fell by 12% to 75 incidents in the year to Q3 2024.
Decreases were also noted in the number of crime incidents involving Controlled Drug offences (-6%), Offences against Government, Justice Procedures & Organisation of Crime (-7%), Robbery, Extortion & Hijacking offences (-2%) and Sexual offences (-1%).
Analysis of Changing Crime Trends since 2020
An analysis of crime trends shows that recorded crime incidents involving Controlled Drug offences and Dangerous or Negligent Acts in the year to Q3 2024 were at their lowest over the five-year period between 2020 and 2024, while those involving Theft & Related offences and Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments & Related offences in the year to Q3 2024 were at their highest.
There were 16,295 recorded crime incidents of Controlled Drug offences in the year to Q3 2024. In 2020, there were 22,403 recorded crime incidents of this offence type and this was down to 21,416 by 2021. There was a sharp fall to just over 17,400 crime incidents in both 2022 and 2023 before settling at 16,295 in 2024, the lowest over the five-year period.
The number of recorded crime incidents involving Dangerous or Negligent Acts in the year to Q3 2024 was also at its lowest over the five-year period. This offence type includes dangerous driving leading to serious injury and driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. In 2020, there were 8,861 recorded crime incidents of this type and this fell to 8,123 incidents in 2021 before rising to 8,562 in 2022. The number of incidents fell to 7,548 in 2023 and was 7,541 in the year to Q3 2024.
By contrast, the number of crime incidents involving Theft & Related offences and Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments & Related offences were at their highest in the year to Q3 2024.
There were 77,260 recorded crime incidents of Theft & Related offences in the year to Q3 2024 which was up from 71,929 incidents in 2023 but far exceeded the levels in the 2020 to 2022 period.
In the year to Q3 2024, there were 24,174 recorded crime incidents involving Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments & Related offences. While this was slightly higher than the 23,880 and 23,461 incidents recorded in 2023 and 2022 respectively, it exceeded the levels in 2020 and 2021 by more than 4,000 incidents.
Crime Trends Among Garda Regions in the 12 months to Q3 2024
The number of recorded crime incidents involving Burglary, Theft and Weapon crimes increased across all regions in the year to Q3 2024. The details are as follows:
By contrast, the number of recorded crime incidents fell across all regions for Controlled Drug offences. The largest rate of decrease was for the Southern region (-11%), and this was followed by the Eastern region (-9%). The rate of decrease was 3% for both the DMR and North Western regions.
For all other offence groups, the experience across Garda regions was mixed.
Victims of Assault & Related Offences
The overall number of persons recorded as victims of Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments & Related offences went up by 3% to 6,082 victims between Q3 2023 and Q3 2024. Nearly six in ten (59%) victims were male in Q3 2024 compared with just over four in ten (41%) female victims. The number of male victims rose by 3% to 3,592 and the number of female victims was up by 1% to 2,490.
When one looks at the age profile of male victims, the results show that the number of victims who were under 18 years fell by 48 or 10% as did those aged between 30 and 44 years (-33 victims or -3%). The number of victims in all other age groups rose with the largest being for those aged 60 years or more (+13%). There were increases of between 10% and 11% for all other age groups.
A somewhat different picture emerged for female victims where most of the overall increase of 1% in the number of victims was accounted for by an increase of 7% or 44 victims in the 18-29 age group. The number of victims aged 60 years or more went up by 3% while those under 18 years and 45-59 years fell by 1%.
Impact of COVID-19 on Data for 2020 and 2021
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 the COVID-19 pandemic.”