Fraud crimes increased by more than 116% in 2021, with 16,929 frauds recorded compared to just 7,834 in the previous year, new CSO figures show.

Unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone, more than doubled to 16,929 by the end of 2021.

Kidnapping and related offences were up 27.1% while sexual offences also increased (+12%).

Homicide and related offences fell by 50% as did burglary and related offences (-21.1%), while weapons and explosives offences (-18.5%) and controlled drug offences (-13.1%) were also down.

COVID breaches

A total of 308 offences were recorded on an Garda Síochána’s PULSE database for breaches of COVID-19 regulations in Q4 2021.

This compares to 539 offences in Q3 2021 and has significantly reduced from earlier quarters in 2021 where the level of restrictions was higher compared to the final quarter.

Statistician Jim Dalton said: “Recorded crime for 2021 was generally down on 2020 levels.

However, there was an increase of 12% in the number of crimes classified as sexual offences. 

He added that virus restrictions had a likely impact on levels of crime.