Seven out of ten of the most serious crimes against property are going unsolved, with non-detection rates in some Garda districts in excess of 80%.
An investigation by The Times has found that only four out of the country’s 96 Garda districts solved more than half of all robberies, burglaries and thefts in their area in 2015.
The figures, published for the first time today, show detection rates at Garda district level for the three main offences involving property — robbery, burglary and theft.
Overall, gardai are successful in solving only 30 per cent of these cases on average, based on official crime figures between January 2013 and the end of September 2015.
The main criteria for classifying an offence as “detected” is when criminal proceedings have been commenced against at least one suspected offender.
The figures reveal a big disparity in the performance of gardaí stationed in 96 districts across the country in catching offenders for such crimes.
In 2015, gardaí based at the five stations within the Leixlip district of Co Kildare had the worst detection rate for robbery, burglary and theft, with less than 14% of all cases solved. The district covers several large towns including Maynooth and Celbridge.
The two other districts in Co Kildare — Naas and Kildare Town — also have comparatively low detection rates, both at about 20%..
Independent TD for Kildare North, Catherine Murphy, , said that the figures were a cause for concern because burglary and theft were among the few crimes that were on the increase in recent years.
Ms Murphy said she believed that there was a clear link between detection rates and Garda manpower levels because Kildare had the lowest number of gardaí of any county in Ireland on a per capita basis.
“The annual policing plan published by An Garda Síochána is a work of fiction, as it does not take into account demographic changes by putting more gardaí into areas where there have been large increases in population, like Kildare,” she said.
Most of the districts with the lowest detection rates are located in Dublin and counties surrounding the capital. They include Clondalkin, Balbriggan and Dun Laoghaire as well as Baltinglass, Co Wicklow and Ashbourne and Trim in Co Meath. Other areas with detection rates of 20% or less include the two Galway districts of Clifden and Salthill.
Two of the four districts where more than 50% of crimes are solved are located in Kerry — Tralee and Listowel.
Gardai based at the nine stations in the Tralee district, which includes the towns of Dingle and Castleisland, had the best detection rate in the country last year, with offenders apprehended in 56% of all property-related crimes.
Detection rates in urban areas are not universally lower than rural stations because gardaí based in two city centre locations in Dublin and Cork — Store Street and Anglesea Street respectively — both made arrests for more than half of all robberies, burglaries and thefts within their districts in the first nine months of last year.
Other districts with above-average detection rates were predominantly based in Munster and included Clonmel, Dungarvan, Ennis, Bandon, Midleton and the Togher district of Cork city.
Over the past three years, gardaí based in the main district in Cork city — Anglesea Street — had the best record in Ireland, solving on average more than 56% of all robberies, burglaries and thefts in its area.
The Garda district of Ashbourne, Co Meath, has the highest rate of unsolved property crimes with an average of 86 per cent of such offences going undetected between 2013 and 2015.
Thirteen other districts have also failed to catch offenders in more than 80% of cases over the period. They include seven districts based in Dublin including Balbriggan, Clondalkin, Terenure and Dun Laoghaire as well as more rural areas such as Baltinglass, Co Wicklow; Thomastown, Co Kilkenny; Clifden, Co Galway and Bruff, Co Limerick.
A Garda spokesman said that the force was introducing a series of new measures designed to improve detection rates, including an enhanced investigator training programme, standardisation of investigative practices, and increased use of data analytics.
He said that detection rates were closely monitored by Garda management.
“In order to protect and support communities, we are implementing a range of initiatives to enhance our investigative capabilities,” he said.
Gardaí plan to increase their use of technology such as CCTV and automatic number plate recognition as well as of forensics and biometrics, including the new DNA database, to solve crime.
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