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IT IS THIS time of year when the public are warned to extra vigilant when it comes to avoiding burglaries.
The dark evenings make houses around the country easy targets for would-be criminals.
As part of the launch of its new anti-crime strategy Operation Thor earlier this week, the gardaí recommended that people:
Have an alarm, light up their home this winter, lock their doors and windows and sheds, and join or set-up a local crime prevention scheme.
A figure that is widely quoted is that burglaries in the winter shoot up by 25% – a figure presented as part of An Garda Síochána’s Winter Burglary Prevention strategy last year.
Nationally, Ireland has seen an overall increase in the number of burglaries in the past 10 years.
In 2004 there 24,913 burglaries across Ireland – a number that was up to 27,625 last year – a national increase of 10%.
As part of Operation Thor, a spike in burglaries is noted between the hours of 5pm and 10pm during winters.
While there may be more burglaries during this time of the evening, is it universally true that we are now in the most dangerous time of the year for break ins overall?
Nationally speaking, the answer is yes.
Looking back over the past 10 years, the fourth and first quarters can be seen as times when houses around the country are most at risk.
In 2014, there was over 2,000 more burglaries in the fourth quarter than in the second quarter, with the figure rising from 5,975 up to 8,259 – an increase of 38%.
Some places are worse than others
However, when this is broken down county by county, some places see much more dramatic spikes than others, with some counties reporting less incidents during the winter than the summer.
Specifically, the stats show that there is less change in the northern region that takes in the garda divisions Cavan/ Monaghan, Donegal, Sligo/ Leitrim and Louth, and the western region which takes in the garda divisions of Clare, Mayo, Galway and Roscommon/ Longford.
In the northern region last year there was an increase of only 3% between the spring months and the winter months, rising from 545 to 562.
Last year in Donegal there were more burglaries in the Spring than in the Winter – dropping from 106 down to 95, a decrease of around 10% – although the number of burglaries in the first quarter was substantially higher.
In the western region there was a change of 5% between the number of burglaries in the spring and winter months – rising from 478 up to 501.
In Mayo last year there were 73 reported burglaries in the second quarter compared to 75 reported incidents between October and December.
Other times of the year
It is worth noting that the comparison between second quarter and fourth quarter is not always totally reflective of seasonal rises in crime.
In areas where a notable rise in incidents is not seen in the last three months of the year there is often a spike in the dark months after 1 January.
For example, the figures in Mayo show a difference of only two incidents between the second quarter and the fourth quarter – in the first quarter of last year there were 20 more burglaries than between April and June – an increase of almost 30%.
The Galway garda division also mirrored this pattern.
Between January and March last year there were 299 burglaries, a number that dropped to 239 between April and June, with 223 incidents between October and December.
Worst hit areas
Around the rest of the country are the Dublin area; the eastern region, which features the garda divisions of Laois, Offaly, Meath, Wicklow, Westmeath and Kildare; the southern region, which features garda divisions covering Cork, Kerry and Limerick and; the south east region, which features the garda divisions of Tipperary, Wexford, Kilkenny/ Carlow and Waterford.
Dublin is one of the worst hit areas, seeing a spike of 53% last year, rising from 2,559 in the spring months to 3,935 between October and December.
In the eastern region last year between the second and fourth quarters, incidents rose from 1,039 up to 1,480 – a jump of 42%, with a 1,203 between January and March last year.
In the southern region last year the number of incidents rose from 650 up to 736 between the spring and the winter.
In the south east, there were more than 300 more incidents in the winter months – rising from 704 between April and June to 1,045 between October and December – an increase of 48%.
The Waterford region saw a particularly dramatic jump – going from 158 in the spring to 252 in the winter.
The statistics in this article are taken from CSO data and mostly focus on the figures for 2014 – they should not be taken as a factor when considering home security.
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YOU can be sure they were the rank and file members not senior management who put there lives at risk,everyday to protect the public
@pat seery:
But that is the job spec. Do you expect the rank and file to be making the strategic and tactical decisions?
@pat seery: well deduced sherlock
@Nick Allen: cause that’s what they do!!!!
@pat seery: I’d be interested to see how many of that number were actually during an arrest
@Zossima: Knob. I, like most right thinking people, believe that the Gardai, in the main,do an excellent job. You couldn’t pay me enough money to put up with what they have to put up with daily.
What will be interesting is the number of compensation claims pursued for these non specified injuries, I do hope paper cuts don’t make the list.
@Marie Nolan:
Garda statistics???
@Christy Nolan:
Injuries where there was no malice involved are also included in the report.
@TonyF: innocent? Very very few I’d say.
We’d be in a sad state without Gardai on the streets yes not enough but what’s there in general are good,so if they are injured they need compensation
become a member of an gardai siochana..low pay and plenty of abuse daily
@Paddy Kavanagh: they are not badly paid. Refer to Bord Snip Nua report done several years ago.
@Paddy Kavanagh: what stuff are you on. Gardai are not low paid
@jfm: They’re not particularly well paid for what they do
@iohanx: Never mind Board Snip, that fellow was and still is off the wall.. of course they are badly paid, would You go out at night to work and take abuse and get assaulted by bad mannered louts who neither care for God or man , a terrible job with everyone trying to catch them out every time.
@Zossima: What has that got to do with Garda injury statistics?
What makes me laugh is the people that slam the gards call them names and take the piss are the first motherf##kers to ring them if they get into hassle, I know this from 2 first hand experiences dealing with so called hard men I’m not the gards biggest fan but I respect their job and the sh#t they have to put up with ,
@Donal O Cofaigh: muppet
@James: who’s the muppet, if it’s me your referring to , why ??
@Donal O Cofaigh: Cant you tell? James is street hardened and he dont ree-spect the 5 – 0.
@Billy Connelly: James is hardcore gangster haha
Small injuries and a guard is out for months and fu!#ing well paid for it taking the pi€s 3 months leave for a knee injury that a GAA player gets on a sunday game and back to work Monday morning!
@Adrian: should the head line not say 2 million guards?
@Adrian:
If a Garda is on sick leave he will have to be certified by a chief medical officer . Are the doctors corrupt then.
@Aine O Connor:
Doctors get a fee for every signature on a sick note and on a prescription.
@Christy Nolan:
Chief Medical Officers in the Civil Service are on a annual salary so your point is not relevant.
@Aine O Connor: If someone complains of back pain or any other ”invisible” injury , there’s not much a doctor can say .
@Aine O Connor: Aine it’s just one big conspiracy but only the really clever people like Christy here can see it.
@Aine O Connor: Ah come on Aine surly your not that naive?
There is no law an order any more all the thugs an prisoners have more rights than the people that they committed the actions against. To many do gooders around. The police management have let us all down.
@TonyF: we don’t have a problem with Garda brutality. They are very disciplined compared to other police forces. Possibly because the recruitment process is so thorough. 30,000 applicants for 600 jobs means they can be choosy unlike in the US.
It’s the gardai on the beat that get injured not administration gardai or senior management..they are tucked up in bed while gardai on the streets get assaulted. 290 out of 15,000 isn’t bad.
@Zossima:
It’s a crime to assault anyone and that includes Gardai on Duty.
@Zossima: as you can see some people can’t take the truth on the journal
What constitutes and injury? Is a paper cut an injury (extreme example)? I’m not saying some are not serious injuries, but I would hazard a guess that a farmer, barman / bar owner or self employed builder would not classify 90% of these injuries as such.
Is low morale classified as an injury?
Garda figures are BS
@Zossima: That sounds like victim blaming to me.
The comments will be interesting. *grabs popcorn
I would say most of them fell over their parking tickets, !!
I’d like more information on those injuries. New applicants should know the risks.
Wers the fucxxx dislike button
@James: Beside da spell check button Hames
@TonyF: no we don’t Tony.
12,500
@George McCarthy:
1,433,000 fake breath tests and 14,500 wrongly convicted motoring offences. The sympathy vote won’t make that vanish.
Yes those injured deserve sympathy but the above report and it’s timing smell of politics. Using the 2013 tragic death of a rank and file garda in this years report is sick.
Shame on those involved.
@Christy Nolan:
Every Garda on duty every day is a target and is putting his or her life at risk for you and me.
@Aine O Connor:
I am also a target for fake garda statistics.
@Aine O Connor: sorry but can’t agree here. It’s a shite job and the only real reason to sign up to it is to get on the gravy train that comes with corruption. They are only targets because they don’t support communities anymore. When we grew up in Dublin 7 the guards were never a target because they were part of the community. They only became targets when they cut themselves off from communities and left I’m us to fend for ourselves.
@Zossima:
Have you forgotten already how George Hook found himself in a load of trouble for suggesting that the victim was in some way to blame. Thugs commit violent assaults . Fact.
@TonyF: about 8 and a half million at last count… think they’re coming for you now
Just Give it a good hard think about before you decide to join up. There is more reading and information about the organisation now than ever before; use it
This number will only continue to climb until the honest side of the force calls to task the power hungry and aggressive side. The attitude of ordinary guards these days is off the scale. They are rude and aggressive more often than not. I recently had a guard from pearse station berate me, stick his finger up at me and call me all sorts of names. All I did was ask for help, I hadn’t seen what he was involved in. Once I did I actually said it’s grand. Once he resolved the other situation he proceeded to call me names to his colleagues as well as DFB in attendance.
@Phil Swan: They all seemed visibly embarrassed by his attitude but did nothing to stop him. I was across the street waiting on a bus and in front of all he shouted insults at me like a belligerent child. Ombudsman can’t touch them and superiors are worse in many stations. Only option left is reports like this where some will lash out and say enough is enough which is why I only see this number rising.
If your article was honest, it would point out that Bernard Durkan is a Fine Gael Government TD. Then, people could deduce that it would have been unnecessary for him to raise a Parliamentary Question to get that information. People might then conclude that it was fed to him as a form of public relations, something in which the Journal is now complicit, not having explained the full facts. By the way, I am a 100% supporter of the Gardai. I just hate government spin and press collusion.
A Garda injured in the line of duty will wait on average 12 years before receiving any compensation.
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