Jump in male sexual-offences victims – CSO
In 2023, the suspected offender was known to 70% of victims of detected sexual offences, CSO statistics show.
The Recorded Crime Victims 2024 and Suspected Offenders 2023 statistics show that almost two-thirds (65%) of victims of detected assaults and related offences were also known to the victim.
The figures are based on recorded-crime data collected by An Garda Síochána on its PULSE system.
Historic sexual offences
In 2024, almost three-quarters (74%) victims of reported incidents of sexual offences were women.
The number of recorded male victims of sexual offences rose by 54% to 869 victims between 2023 and 2024.
The CSO says that this increase related mainly to a near-doubling of such incidents that were reported by males more than a year after the occurrence.
The figures show that 95% of recorded male victims of historic sexual offences (reported more than one year after occurrence) were under 18 years of age when the incident occurred.
In 2024, 30% of all victims of sexual offences reported the incident more than ten years after it occurred – up from 22% in 2023 and 21% in 2022.
Suspected offenders
Half of recorded victims of sexual offences in 2024 were under 18 years of age at the time of occurrence.
CSO statistician Jim Dalton said that, in 16% of detected sexual offences, the suspected offender was a friend or acquaintance of the victim.
The suspected offender was a blood relative in 13% of incidents. Current or former intimate partners or spouses accounted for 8% of all suspected offenders in these cases.
Homicide figure down
There were 77 recorded victims of homicide and related offences in 2024 – down from the 88 victims recorded in 2023. Just under three-quarters of victims were male.
Of the total, 41 were by murder or manslaughter, while the remaining 36 were by dangerous driving leading to death.
There were 24,142 recorded victims of attempts or threats to murder, assaults, harassments, and related offences in 2024 – the highest over the four-year period from 2021.
Within this category, 62% of assault victims were male, compared with 38% for females.
Harassment
Almost 70% of incidents of harassment and related offences in 2023 that were detected by 2025 involved a female victim. In most cases, the suspected offender was a male.
A crime is marked as detected when gardaí have identified at least one person responsible for committing the offence and that person has been issued a charge or summons, a formal or informal caution, or a fixed-payment notice.
This person is termed as a suspected offender. Data on suspected offenders is published with a one-year time lag to allow time for criminal investigations to progress.