As I have said previously, I welcome the publication of the Central Statistics Office survey data which were rigorous, comprehensive and unique. This is the first time a nationwide survey of this scale was carried out by the Central Statistics Office and I hope this would become a regular feature of the CSO work programme so that trends could be monitored over a period of time.
I must highlight, however, that the CSO drew attention to the fact that "the survey results are not directly comparable with crime statistics published in the Garda Síochána annual report, as there are fundamental differences in sources, definitions and classification methodology". It is also worth noting that the CSO has highlighted that the survey data are subject to sampling variation and that some of the results should be interpreted with extreme caution. We are not comparing like with like and this is always crucial when comparing any two data collection systems if robust conclusions are to be drawn.