CSO reveals 116% rise in fraud-related crimes across Ireland in 2021

Fraud crimes across Ireland rose by 116% in 2021, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has revealed. 

The data was curated for the final Recorded Crime report of 2021, which covers the fourth quarter as well as the year as a whole, and found 17,000 total frauds were recorded in the 12-month period. 

This is a significant jump of more than double the previous year's total of 7,834. 

According to the CSO, the increase is largely driven by unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal or banking information online or by phone. 

The report also found sexual offences increased year-on-year with a rise of approximately 12%, while kidnapping and related offences rose by almost 30%. 

However, homicide and related offences fell by 50%, as well as burglary (-21.1%), weapons & explosives offences (-18.5%) and controlled drug offences (-13.1%). 

Statistician with the Crime and Criminal Justice section of the CSO, Jim Dalton, spoke about the release today (Tuesday March 29). 

He said, "Fraud crime, largely driven by unauthorised transactions and attempts to obtain personal banking information online or by phone rose 116% in 2021 Recorded Crime Statistics published today by the CSO reveal. Fraud crime more than doubled to 16,929 offences recorded in the year to quarter 4 2021. 

"Most other forms of crime were down over the year with the biggest decreases in Burglary and related offences, down by more than 21%, while weapons and explosives fell by almost 19%. However, sexual offences increased by 12%." 

Over three hundred incidents were recorded on An Garda Síochána’s PULSE database for breaches of Covid-19 regulations in the fourth quarter of 2021.  

This is a decrease on the 539 offences in quarter three and has significantly reduced from earlier quarters in 2021, where the level of Covid-19 restrictions were higher. 

Regarding the issue of cancelled 999 calls, Mr Dalton said, "An internal AGS investigation into the inappropriate cancellation of calls on its Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system is ongoing. The premature or improper cancellation of calls on the CAD system may mean that records relating to crimes, which were reported to AGS, were not created on the PULSE system, and are therefore not counted in Recorded Crime statistics.

"While some preliminary analysis of the impact has been done by AGS, the CSO is awaiting clarification on the full impact of the issue from AGS, including the time periods involved (how far back this issue goes), the crime types impacted, and crucially, the estimated numbers of crimes which were not recorded on PULSE due to inappropriate cancellation of CAD calls, before it can determine the impact on Recorded Crime statistics.”