The vast majority of criminal cases prosecuted by the Director of Public Prosecutions result in conviction, according to the DPP's annual report for 2004.
The last year for which full figures are available is 2003, and in this year 90 per cent of cases prosecuted by the DPP led to a guilty plea, with 5 per cent of those prosecuted found guilty by a jury.
Two per cent were acquitted by a jury, and 3 per cent acquitted on direction of the trial judge.
About 60 per cent of the files sent to the DPP result in a decision to prosecute. In the 40 per cent of files where no prosecution is directed, this is usually because the office considers there is insufficient evidence to mount a prosecution.
This occurred in 73 per cent of cases in 2004, and in 76 per cent of cases in 2003.
Other reasons for not prosecuting include the use of the juvenile diversion programme , the expiry of the time limit, or either public interest or sympathetic grounds.
The latter apply if the accused is seriously ill, for example. Public interest grounds arise if no public interest would be served by the prosecution.
Directions to prosecute are issued within a month in the majority of cases (57 per cent), with directions issued in under three months in 80 per cent of cases. Ten per cent of cases take between three and six months, and 4 per cent between six and 12 months.
Commenting on this, the report states: "Files vary in size and complexity. Also, in some cases, further information or investigation was required before a decision could be made.
"Further information may be sought to enhance the proofs in a case and does not necessarily imply any deficiency in the investigation."
The work of the office has increased steadily over the past 30 years, with a sharp rise in 2001 due to the transfer to the office of the DPP of the section of the Chief State Solicitor's Office dealing with criminal prosecutions.
The total number of files received in 1976 was 2,298, and this had risen almost seven-fold, to 14,590 in 2004.
However, more than half of this is accounted for by the transfer from the office of the Chief State Solicitor in 2001.
The report shows a sharp rise in the number of instances where the DPP appealed against leniency of sentence, which rose from 12 in 1998 to 34 in 1999, and has remained between 20 and 30 since.
In recent years more than half such applications have been successful, with 11 out of 20 successful in 2003 and 13 out of 22 succeeding in 2004.
The DPP's office cost €28.6 million to run last year. Almost half of this, €12.3 million, was made up of fees to counsel, with €5.6 million being paid for appearances in the Circuit Court.
This is a slight drop on the fees paid to counsel in 2003, which amounted to €12.99 million. Salaries and wages accounted for €8.4 million.
The Estimates for that year allowed €16 million for fees to counsel, and the actual expenditure of just under €13 million allowed for €3.18 million to be surrendered back to the Exchequer.