Fall in number of fraud offences recorded in Louth in first half of year

There was a 26.7% fall in the number of fraud, deception and related offences recorded in the Louth Garda Division in the first six months of 2022 compared to the last six months of 2021, according to figures released this week by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). In the year to June 2022 however, the number of offences recorded is 34.3% higher than the year previous.

184 fraud, deception and related offences were recorded in the Louth Division in the first half of 2022 according to the CSO figures. This is 67 down on the 251 recorded in the second half of 2021. In the year to June 2022, 435 offences were recorded in Louth, this is up from the 324 recorded in the 12 month to June 2021, a 34.3% increase.

The figures show that there was a spike in the number of fraud offences in Louth in Q2, Q3 and Q4 (April-December) of 2021. In the first quarter of 2021 71 offences were recorded. This more than doubled to 152 in the second quarter of 2021, fell to 116 in the third quarter and rose again to 135 in the last three months of 2021. The number fell again to 93 in the first quarter of 2022 and to 91 in the second quarter of 2022.

Recorded Crime statistics continue to be categorised by the CSO as Statistics Under Reservation. This categorisation indicates that the quality of these statistics do not meet the standards required of official statistics published by the CSO. For more information on this see https://www.cso.ie/en/methods/crime/statisticsunderreservationfaqs/.