The CSO in December 2024 and March 2025 provided updates to users on the impact on Fraud crime statistics of the backlog in the recording of potential fraud related crime incidents reported to An Garda Síochána by Financial Institutions under Section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2011 on the PULSE system.
The CSO is advised by An Garda Síochána that it continues to work on the backlog of Section 19 referrals from Financial Institutions and is making progress on this issue. In addition, work is ongoing by An Garda Síochána to extend an existing reporting portal to handle Section 19 referrals. This system will improve the consistency and efficiency of the reporting process for Financial Institutions.
In view of this ongoing work, the CSO will continue to publish statistics on recorded incidents of Fraud, Deception & Related offences based on those directly reported to An Garda Síochána by members of the public and recorded on the Garda PULSE system. Therefore, users should continue to exercise caution in the interpretation of published statistics on recorded crime incidents of this offence type as they are below the overall reported level and should be considered incomplete.
For most crimes, a detection means that a suspected offender is issued with a charge or summons and faces prosecution in the Courts.
As with detections, the longer the gap between the measurement being taken and the end of the reference period, the more time there is to allow for investigations to conclude and for further detections, or in this case prosecutions, to be achieved. As a result, the share of detections classed as a charge or summons for each year tends to increase over time. This feature affects some crime types more than others as there are a number of factors that may influence the rate of detection for crimes. The effect of the time lag should be considered in respect of the time series.
The proportion of crime incidents reported in the years 2018 to 2024, which have a valid charge or summons linked to the incident, is shown in Table 4.1. This time series is provided, even though it is not provided for detections more broadly, on the basis that the way in which charges and summons are recorded did not change in 2018, as other detection indicators did.
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