Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 April 2018
280. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Justice and Equality to outline his views on a media report that An Garda Síochána overstated the number of sexual offences reported in each of the years 2003 to 2016. [17698/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraA review being carried out by the Central Statistics Office of the statistics provided to them by An Garda Síochána has highlighted some classification errors. The review has, in particular, highlighted an overestimation of the level of sexual crime reported for most years from 2003-2016.
The CSO have advised that part of the reason for the over-recording of crimes was because, until now, if repeated crimes were committed by the same person on the same victim, each incident was recorded as a separate case. During the 14-year period under review, from 2003 to 2016, sex crime reporting was overestimated by the Garda by 6 per cent overall.
It should be noted that the over-recording of these crimes was most pronounced in the years 2003-2008, and that in more recent years the level of over-recording discovered was between 1% and 3%.
While it is very concerning that further errors in the recording and classification of statistics have been uncovered, it is important that these errors are identified and that the figures are corrected and measures put in place to avoid recurrence.
The CSO guidance in this area is of great assistance to An Garda Síochána, as well as the continued diligence shown by the Policing Authority in terms of their oversight of this issue.
