asked the Minister for Justice the number of prosecutions brought for offences under section 61 or 62 of the Offences Against the Person Act, 1861 or section 11 of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1885 from 1970 to date under each of the following headings: (a) the number of prosecutions instituted each year and the section under which they were brought, (b) the number of convictions under each of the sections in each year, (c) the number of appeals from convictions, and the number which were successful, in each year, and (d) the average penalties for convictions under each section in the last ten years.
Written Answers. - Prosecution Statistics
207.
Statistics of prosecutions and convictions in respect of the offences in question are not available in the form sought by the Deputy at (a) and (b) of the question. The annual Reports on Crime of the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána for the years 1970 to 1978, copies of which are in the Oireachtas Libary, contain the available statistics. The latest published report is for 1978. In the crime reports for the years 1970 to 1975 inclusive, the offences in question are included under the heading "unnatural offences and attempts". In the crime reports from 1976 onwards, the offences in question are listed under the headings "homosexuality and attempts" and "bestiality and attempts". The information sought at (c) and (d) of the question is not available from court statistics and its compilation would involve an amount of staff time which would not be justified.