asked the Minister for Justice the total number of cars reported stolen in the Dublin area for the year ended December 1983, and the year ended December 1984.
Written Answers. - Car Theft Statistics.
565.
, Limerick East): Final crime statistics for 1984 are not yet available and the figures quoted hereunder are provisional ones for the first ten months of that year. It is assumed that the question is intended to include cars taken without the owners' consent even though in most cases this is not stealing in the legal sense.
The total number of larcenies of motor vehicles (which term, of course, includes car, motor cycles, vans etc.) in the Dublin Metropolitan Area during 1983 was 1,377. The corresponding figure for the first ten months of 1984 was 862. In addition, during 1983, there were 15,071 unauthorised takings of motor vehicles. The corresponding figure for the first ten months of 1984 was 12,203.
A breakdown of the number of cars included in these figures is not available. In all cases classified as "unauthorised takings" the vehicle involved was recovered. It is only if a vehicle is recovered that the Garda can normally have information which enables them to classify it as an "unauthorised taking" rather than stealing, though, of course, not all vehicles recovered are or can be so classified.