Vol. 523 No. 2
195 Mr. Gormley asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform whether he was aware, at the time he welcomed the findings of the Garda Síochána's 1999 annual report, that the report was based on incomplete statistics. [20766/00]
As the Deputy may be aware, the transition to the PULSE environment from 1 October 1999 meant that full details of all categories of crime would not be available in the 1999 annual report.
However, I understand from the Garda authorities that the annual total for 1999 of 81,274 was generated by aggregating data from the old mainframe computer system with data collected between 1 October 1999 and 31 December 1999. I also understand that full year data is available for the principal categories of crime in various parts of the annual report.
In overall terms the Deputy can rest assured that crime levels in 1999 were 5% lower than in 1998.
