The number of murders in Ireland have “nearly doubled” year-on-year, the CSO claims.
According to newly released figures, there was an increase of 31% in recorded incidents of Homicide & Related offences in the year to Q2 2023, compared to the same period in 2022.
“Murders, which nearly doubled from 24 to 47 incidents contributed to nearly all of this increase,” the CSO said in a statement.
In addition, the number of recorded crime incidents of Theft & Related offences were up by 25% or 14,133 to 71,284 incidents over the same period. Nearly half of this increase was due to Theft from Shops.
Sexual offences were up by 1% to 3,658 incidents over the same period.
Recorded incidents of Robbery, Extortion & Hijacking offences increased by 21% or 410 to 2,328 in the year to Q2 2023 and Robbery from the person and Blackmail or Extortion accounted for most of this increase.
Other offence categories of recorded crime increased in the year to Q2 2023, with the largest rates of increase being Damage to Property & the Environment (+7% or +1,530), Controlled Drug offences (+6% or +971) and Offences against Government, Justice Procedures & Organisation of Crime (+6% or +772).
Some categories of crimes, however, fell dramatically.
“Incidents of Fraud, Deception & Related offences however were down by 37% or 5,923 to 10,300 incidents over the same period,” the CSO reported.
“This was due mostly to a fall in incidents of unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone.”
The highest rate of decrease among other offence categories were for Kidnapping & Related offences (-13% or -21), Dangerous or Negligent Acts (-11% or -957) and Burglary & Related offences (-8% or -819).
Speaking about the findings, CSO Statistician in the Crime & Criminal Justice Section, Jim Dalton, outlined as well how certain violent crimes also declined.
“Victims of Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments & Related offences during Q2 2023 fell by 2% from the corresponding period in 2022,” he said.
“The number of male victims was down by 1% while female victims decreased by 3%.”
He went on to outline the significance of burglary and fraud figures being down.
“Burglary and fraud crimes showed the largest rate of change between 2019 and 2023,” he said.
“The number of crime incidents classed as Burglary & 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 & 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%.”
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