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Number of thefts hits a five-year high – CSO

Official figures show that offences linked to burglary and theft rose in the year to the third quarter (Q3) of 2024, but homicide offences fell. 

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) also said that it was engaging with the gardaí on an issue that has affected the reporting of fraud-related crime incidents. 

According to the office, the number of burglaries during the 12-month period was 9,981 – up 10% compared with a year earlier.

Homicides down 12% 

Offences linked to theft rose by 7% to 5,331, with 60% of the increase due to theft from shops. The theft figure was the highest during the five-year period from 2020 onwards. 

Other categories of crime that showed increases over the 12 months to Q3 2024 were kidnapping (16%), weapons and explosives (11%), and public order (3%). 

Homicide and related offences fell by 12% to 75, while offences linked to drugs were down 6%. The number of controlled-drugs offences, at 16,295, was the lowest in the last five years. 

Extortion and sexual offences both recorded marginal drops. 

The number of victims of attempts or threats to murder, assaults, harassments and related offences rose by 3% compared with a year earlier. Almost 60% of the 6,082 victims were male. 

Fraud backlog 

These recorded-crime figures had been due for publication to in December last year, but the CSO said that the release had been postponed to allow it to engage with gardaí on a reported backlog in the recording of fraud-related incidents reported by financial institutions on its PULSE system. 

The backlog arose from an increase in the reporting of suspected fraud-related incidents by financial institutions from August 2023 onwards after a move to centralise such reports through the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau. 

The CSO has warned that, as a result, fraud figures published before and after Q3 of 2023 are no longer comparable. 

The 11,561 fraud-related incidents in the year to Q3 2024 are based only on those reported directly to gardaí by members of the public. 

The CSO says that it aims to expand the reporting of fraud-related crime after gardaí have fully implemented a new platform for referrals from financial institutions.