There has been an 18% increase in theft and related offences in the north-west region, according to new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
The report on crimes recorded in the first quarter (Q1) of this year also shows a rise in these offences in other regions when compared to the first three months of 2023.
Theft and related offences were up by 15% in the eastern region, 9% in the south and by 5% in the Dublin Metropolitan region in the year to Q1 2024.
CSO
Robbery, extortion and hijacking offences had the largest increase in the eastern (24%) and southern (21%) regions, followed by a rate of 16% in the Dublin Metropolitan and north-western regions.
Fraud, deception and related offences were up by 21% in the eastern region and by 15% in the north-west.
By contrast, sexual offences fell across all regions, with the largest decrease (16%) in the Dublin Metropolitan region, followed by the eastern (14%) and southern (13%) regions.
The lowest rate of decrease was in the north-west region at 3%.
Offences against government, justice procedures and organisation of crime (mainly offences while in custody and breach of court orders), also dropped across all regions, the largest rate of decrease (21%) was in the southern region.
Crime
Jim Dalton, statistician in the CSO crime and criminal justice section, said that overall the data showed that robbery, weapons, theft and fraud crimes were up in the year to Q1 2024.
“The number of recorded incidents of robbery, extortion and hijacking offences increased by 18% or 390 to 2,572 in the year to Q1 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
“This was driven mostly by a rise in incidents of blackmail or extortion and robbery from the person offences.
“Incidents of weapons and explosives offences were up by 10% or 253 to 2,844 incidents over the same period,” he said.
“Theft and related offences were up by 9% or 6,415 to 75,825 incidents, with theft from shops accounting for more than two in five (44%) of these incidents.
“Recorded crime incidents of fraud, deception and related offences were also up over the period, rising by 9% or 933 to 11,479 incidents.
“There were also increases in incidents relating to burglary and related offences (6%) and attempts/threats to murder, assaults, harassments and related offences (1%), while those relating to damage to property and to the environment remained unchanged,” he added.
Dalton noted that there was a drop of 8% in homicide and related offences and a 12% fall in sexual offences.
Public order and other social code offences and controlled drug offences were down by 5% and 4% respectively.