Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 307: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of crimes detected across all headings in Bailieboro Garda division during 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7296/06]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The introduction of the PULSE computer system by the Garda Síochána in 1999 has led to more complete and comprehensive recording of crimes reported than was previously the case. Consequently, the statistics provided for 1997 are not comparable to statistics provided for 2000 and subsequent years.

I am informed by the Garda authorities that the following table shows the ten headline group totals for the Garda district of Bailieboro for 2000-05, inclusive. It should be borne in mind that any interpretation of the crime figures should factor in the increase in our population in the past ten years. In 1995 with a population of almost 3.6 million people, there were 29 crimes per 1,000 of the population. In 2005 with a population of over 4.1 million, there were 24.6 crimes per 1,000 of the population, a reduction of 4.4 crimes per 1,000 of the population. A certain proportion of the increase in the figures for recorded headline crime is due to the increases in recording rates resulting from the phasing in of the Garda PULSE IT system from 1999 to 2002.