There was a significant fall in recorded serious crime incidents last year, particularly involving dangerous driving causing death, with a smaller drop in sexual crimes apart from rape, new figures show.
Homicide and related offences were down 25 per cent last year in comparison to 2024, according to the Central Statistic Office (CSO). The number of murders (35) and manslaughters (five) remained the same over both years, but a 46 per cent decrease in cases of dangerous driving causing death pushed the total down.
The number of recorded crime incidents fell across most offence groups last year compared with 2024, but the incident rate rose for some offences. The largest increase, 6 per cent, was in the weapons and explosive offences category.
The number of recorded rape incidents rose by 31 (3 per cent) to 1,016 but recorded sexual crime incidents fell by 10 per cent overall.
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A crime incident is classified as an event where one or more offences are committed by the same offender, or group of offenders acting in concert, at the same time and place.
After examining data from 2022 to last year, the CSO said the number of recorded crime incidents in 10 out of 15 offence groups was down over the four-year period.
The most significant drops related to homicide and related offences, down 28 per cent since 2022 to 66 incidents last year.
In relation to dangerous or negligent acts, the total fell by 12 per cent to 31,638. Kidnapping and related offences also fell by 12 per cent to 142 incidents.
The number of recorded burglaries and related offences fell by 10 per cent to 8,469 over the four years, while sexual crime incidents fell by 10 per cent to 3,449 in the same period.
Jim Dalton, a statistician in the CSO’s crime and criminal justice section, said recorded crime incidents fell for most offence groups in the final quarter of last year when compared to the same period in 2024.
The most significant drops were in homicide and related offences (25 per cent); kidnapping and related offences (21 per cent); burglary and related offences (13 per cent); and robbery, extortion and hijacking offences (11 per cent).
There were 73,000 thefts last year, down 3 per cent, and 8,469 incidents of burglaries and related offences, down 1,279. There was a 1 per cent rise in recorded incidents of drink or drug driving, involving more than 6,670 people. The year on year rates of decrease among all other offence groups were in the single-digit range, with the largest (9 per cent) in respect of sexual offences.
The number of recorded crime incidents fell across all Garda regions for five of 16 offence groups between 2024 and last year. These related to homicides, robbery, extortion and hijacking, sexual offences, theft and related offences, and damage to property and to the environment.
The rates of decrease for homicide and related offences were highest in the northwestern (36 per cent) and eastern regions (27 per cent) and lowest in the southern region (11 per cent). The rate of decrease for sexual offences was between 8 and 10 per cent across all regions.
The highest rate of decrease for theft and related offences was 6 per cent for the northwestern and southern regions.
The number of victims of crime incidents of attempts/threats to murder, assaults, harassment and related offences fell by 2 per cent to 5,872 in the final quarter of last year compared with the same period a year earlier.
The CSO pointed out its published statistics on crime incidents of fraud, deception and related offences continue to relate only to those reported directly to An Garda Síochána by members of the public and do not include those reported by financial institutions as required under Section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act 2011.
The CSO data showed fraud incidents were down 3 per cent while recent Garda figures showed an increase of more than 130 per cent.
