The Garda has acknowledged that its 1999 crime report, published yesterday, gives incomplete figures for several categories of serious crime.
As the Minister for Justice welcomed the fall in reported crime yesterday, it emerged that the report has incomplete statistics about serious crimes including sexual assaults, robberies and burglaries where weapons such as syringes were used, burglaries and robberies of tourists. The statistics for these categories are complete only for the first nine months of the year. The report says this is due to problems with the Garda's new multimillion pound computerised information system, PULSE.
It is the first time in recent history that the Garda's annual report of reported crime has been issued with an acknowledged degree of incomplete information. A spokesman for the Garda last night confirmed the report contained incomplete "statistical analysis" because of difficulties with the force's new computerised information system.
According to the Garda Press Office, statistical analysis on 1999 crime figures in the Garda report is complete in only eight categories of serious crime. These include homicide (where 30 offences were recorded over the 12 months); armed robbery (290 offences recorded) and other relatively infrequent crime.
The spokesman said the analysis of 1999 crime was not completed because of the introduction in October 1999 of PULSE (an acronym for Police Using Leading Systems Effectively).
PULSE, which the report states has so far cost £43 million, was introduced in October last year but almost immediately started causing problems because of the complexity of inputting data about crime, traffic incidents, court records and firearms records. For the first seven months, most Garda stations were unable to input data and detailed forms were completed by hand and sent individually by Swiftpost to an office in Fitzgibbon Street in Dublin.
Figures reported in yesterday's Irish Times of 10,282 burglaries of homes and 7,114 burglaries of commercial premises were the totals for the period of January to September only and not for the entire year. The annual report does contain a table which gives the 12-month total for burglaries as 23,042.
The report states there was a 5 per cent decrease in reported crime between 1999 and 1998.
In the report Garda Commissioner Mr Pat Byrne says: "While crime statistics provide the basis for law enforcement policy and a means towards resource allocation, they also act as a guide towards preventative action and I am in the process of devising a system whereby crime analysis will be a key step in the preventative process".
But referring to the PULSE problem he also says: "The expected issues inherent in implementing such a complex system are being addressed, some of which are manifested in this report in that the last three months' figures lack precise statistical analysis."
It emerged in July this year that the Garda was having difficulties in compiling crime statistics for the first six months of this year. Rural divisions, particularly those in the west with low volumes of crime, recorded huge jumps when they implemented the new system to the letter. By contrast, urban divisions, which account for the bulk of the crime, showed small decreases.
Garda statistics are already believed to underestimate crime levels. A report published by the Central Statistics Office last year indicated the percentage of crimes reported to the Garda varied from 95 per cent in the case of car theft - where reports must be made for insurance purposes - to as little as 40 per cent for offences like larceny and assault.