CSO: City centre crime less than circulating areas

PUBLIC order problems in Dublin and Cork are being driven by sharp rises in incidents outside the city centres, new figures indicate.

Garda sources said this could reflect specific Garda public order operations in the city centres — targeting pubs, nightclubs and fast food outlets — where the incidents occur.

Figures provided to the Irish Examiner by the Central Statistics Office for 2003 to 2007 show that in the six Garda divisions in Dublin:

* Public order incidents rose by 51%, from 9,134 to 13,787.

* Drunkenness cases fell by 27% from 4,580 to 3,330.

* Minor assault cases rose by 37% from 2,045 to 2,796.

* Serious assaults fell by 14% from 1,385 to 1,1196.

* Total number of all four offences rose by 23%, from 17,144 to 21,109.

A breakdown of the divisions show a different trend in the two city centre divisions to the divisions circulating the city.

Dublin north central division recorded a 71% fall in drunkenness cases and an actual drop (14%) in public order offences.

Dublin south central recorded a lower than average rise in public order incidents (up 40%) and similar to the average in drunkenness cases (down 26%).

In contrast, both the eastern division and the northern division saw increases of more than 120% in public order offences. The western division witnessed a rise of more than 70%.

The northern division also reported a sharp rise (50%) in cases of drunkenness.

Figures for the three Cork divisions show:

* Public order incidents rose by 32%, from 3,821 to 5,057.

* Cases of drunkenness rose by 25%, from 1,126 to 1,409.

* Minor and serious assaults remained largely unchanged.

Again, a breakdown of the three divisions show that the city division recorded far lower increases in crime than the two other divisions.

In the Cork city division, there was a 16% rise in public order offences and a 14% increase in drunkenness offences.

However, Cork north reported an 84% increase and a 52% rise in the two categories. Cork west recorded rises of 57% and 30% respectively.

“There have been more public order operations in the cities in the past couple of years thanks to the overtime budget for such operations, and they show they work,” said one Garda source.

“However, the increases in the surrounding divisions is worrying. Maybe that shows that the operations are mainly going on in the city centres, which is understandable given that’s where the bulk of the public order hot spots, pubs and nightclubs are.”