These statistics are categorised as Under Reservation. This categorisation indicates that the quality of these statistics do not meet the standards required of official statistics published by the CSO. For further information please refer to the Under Reservation FAQ page.
This publication presents information on the nature of the relationship between Victims and Reported suspects for Assault and Sexual offence crimes for the period Quarter 3 (Q3) 2021 to Q3 2022.
The data presented is based only on the view of the relationship between the victim of the crime and recorded suspect as reported to An Garda Síochána (AGS) by the victim and where such relationship is known. Therefore, it excludes instances where no reported suspect has yet been identified or where the nature of the relationship is not known. Currently, 77% of reported Sexual offences have a known relationship, and 76% of Assault offences. Consequently, the crime incident volumes in each table will not accrue to the published volumes of crime incidents for these crime categories.
The term ‘recorded suspect’ therefore differs from the ‘suspected offender’ term used in the CSO’s Recorded Crime Victims & Suspected Offenders and Recorded Crime Detection publications. For statistical purposes, a suspected offender is defined as a valid completed person record (i.e. includes sex and date of birth) which is linked to a recorded crime incident as the ‘suspected offender’. A person can only be recorded as a suspected offender when they have been deemed responsible for the crime by An Garda Síochána and have been issued with a sanction such as a charge, summons or caution.
Consequently, the statistics presented in this publication are not an account of crime detections for these two crime categories.
Crime detection data is separately reported in the CSO’s Recorded Crime Victims & Suspected Offenders and Recorded Crime Detection publications. See Recorded Crime Victims & Suspected Offenders and Recorded Crime Detection.
The crime category ‘Attempts/Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassment and Related offences’ are referred to as ‘Assaults’ in this publication.
The data is compiled exclusively from administrative records created and maintained by An Garda Síochána, Ireland’s National Police and Security Service, on their incident recording system PULSE (Police Using Leading Systems Effectively).
Due to the relationship recording being available from Q3 2021, based on development work by AGS, the CSO is now in a position to report on the relationship between victims and reported suspects. This data provides additional insight into some of the most serious crimes committed in Ireland.
Published figures may be subject to revision as underlying records are subject to update, review or revision by An Garda Síochána as investigations progress.
The reported suspect is the current spouse of the victim or intimate cohabitating or non-cohabitating partner of the victim.
The reported suspect is the former spouse of the victim or former intimate cohabitating or non-cohabitating partner of the victim.
Other family members, for example, siblings, children, relatives. This also includes adopted persons and step relatives. These may be cohabitating or non-cohabitating.
Members of household where there is no familial relationship with the victim.
Person whom the victim knows personally.
Person whom the victim knows but has limited knowledge of.
The reported suspect is known to the victim through their place of work or through involvement in non-work related activities.
The reported suspect is in a position of authority (e.g., teacher, doctor, police) in relation to the victim or the victim is under the care of the reported suspect (e.g., foster care).
Reported suspect is known to the victim but relationship does not fall into any of the preceding categories.
Gardai have identified the offender but the victim states that he/she does not know that person.
Recorded Crime statistics are categorised by the Central Statistics Office as Statistics Under Reservation. This category is used to keep users informed about the quality of statistical outputs and arises because of ongoing data quality issues within the data source. In the case of PULSE data, it informs users that Recorded Crime statistics based on recorded incidents on PULSE may understate or overstate the prevalence of reported offences and may be subject to revisions in subsequent statistical publications. Please see Statistics Under Reservation FAQs for further information.
Crimes reported to, or which become known to, An Garda Síochána are recorded as crime incidents if a member of An Garda Síochána determines that, on the balance of probability, a criminal offence defined by law has taken place, and there is no credible evidence to the contrary.
The rules governing how crimes are to be recorded by An Garda Síochána are provided in the Guide to How Crime is Recorded and Counted by An Garda Síochána (PDF 971KB) .
This document explains the rationale for whether or not to record a crime incident and what to record, and provides guidance for the classification, reclassification, and invalidation of crime incident records, and for recording whether a crime incident has been detected. Its publication is an important development, not only for providing transparency in how crime is recorded on PULSE, but also in allowing users to better understand and use its statistical outputs.
Crime incidents are classified by type according to a set of approximately 200 different incident types (e.g. murder, assault, burglary).
The Central Statistics Office is in receipt of a single regular data extract from the PULSE database, updated each quarter. The data extract comprises a subset of the data held on the PULSE database, configured for the specific purpose of compiling Recorded Crime statistics.
Only valid, primary crime incidents assigned to a valid Garda sub-district within the State are included in Recorded Crime statistics.
Recorded Crime incidents are differentiated by type, reporting period and location for statistical purposes:
The ‘incident type’ variable, as recorded on PULSE, is used to differentiate between crimes of different type.
The set of PULSE incident types is mapped to the Irish Crime Classification System (ICCS) for statistical reporting (see below for details).
The ‘date reported’ variable, as recorded on PULSE, is used to differentiate between different reporting time periods i.e. by quarter and by year.
It is the date the crime is reported, rather the date the crime occurred, which is used for statistical reporting, in line with international best practice.
The Station (or Garda sub-district) variable, as recorded on PULSE, is used to aggregate crime incidents up to administrative areas such as Garda Divisions and Garda Regions.
For stations which have been closed, crime incidents are reassigned to the Garda sub-district which assumed responsibility for the area of the closed station.
The crime incident reporting gap is the time between when a crime incident takes place and when it is reported to An Garda Síochána.
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ICCSQ Offence Groups |
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02 |
Sexual offences |
Rape of a male or female |
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03 |
Attempts or Threats to Murder, Assaults, Harassments and Related offences |
Murder – attempt |
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