Peadar Tóibín
Question:1310. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Justice the number of times gardaí were called to the scene of a stabbing in each county in the State in each of the past ten years in tabular form. [2194/22]
View answerWednesday, 19 January 2022
Questions (1310)
Written answers
I have sought the information requested by the Deputy from An Garda Síochána, however, this was not available in time. I will write to the Deputy once the information is to hand.
The following deferred reply was received under Standing Order 51
I refer to Parliamentary Question Number 1310 which was for answer on 19 January 2022, where you requested to be informed of “the number of times gardaí were called to the scene of a stabbing in each county in the State in each of the past ten years in tabular form.”
You will recall that the information was not available at the time to respond to the Question and I undertook to contact you as soon as I had received a report from An Garda Síochána.
I am informed by the Garda authorities that the Garda Síochána Analytics Service (GSAS) had considered ‘knife crime’ in detail in early 2021 and a report on same was published on the Garda website which contains the most detailed information possible on this topic. The report can be viewed at the following link:
https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/publications/general-reports/analysis-of-knife-related-crime-data-february-2021.pdf
I am further informed that GSAS can only provide a breakdown of crime incidents based upon “ICCS Crime Type” or “PULSE Incident Type” at the lowest structured level.
While stabbings would most likely be a subset of Assault, Homicide or Suicide type incidents, this detail would only be contained in the narrative field rather than a structured data field. A search of the narrative field to identify such incidents, especially for such an exceptional period of time as covered by the Parliamentary Question, would require a disproportionate expenditure of Garda time and resources.
The weapons MO on PULSE indicates the presence of a weapon (multiple types of weapons could be used in a ‘stabbing’ incident), however, the weapon may have been used to threaten as opposed to injure.
PULSE contains records of incidents, these are not necessarily the same as calls for service (e.g. multiple calls may be received about a single incident). There is also no specific field on the call incidents system which would record ‘stabbings’ separately. PULSE is the sole comprehensive data source for replies to Parliamentary Questions currently.
As not all stabbings may be reported to the Gardaí and as a complimentary data source, GSAS have utilised data from the HSE (as per the report above) to inform on the number of assaults with knives which have resulted in more serious injuries requiring admission to hospital.
Consequently I have been advised by the Garda Authorities that it is not possible to provide the information requested in this Parliamentary Question for the reasons outlined above.
I trust this information is of assistance.