Bicycles worth €4m stolen last year

Bicycles worth a total of over €4m were reported stolen last year.

Over the last decade there has been a significant increase in such theft.

Gardaí said 6,750 bicycles were stolen nationally last year, the largest number being taken in the Dublin Metropolitan Region.

In the period January to May, there have been 2,100 thefts, but gardaí warned that this is likely to rise significantly as twice as many bicycles as normal are stolen between July and September.

Last year 34% of all thefts were reported in Dublin city centre and 40% in the capital’s metropolitan region. The remaining 26% were taken in the rest of the country.

Gardaí released the figures in an effort to make bicycle owners take more care of their property as part of National Bike Week.

They say that 66% of bicycles are stolen from public places and are most likely to be taken on weekend afternoons.

The remaining third are stolen from houses and garden sheds, and normally disappear at night.

Over the last 10 years the level of bike theft has increased by 227%. Bicycle owners don’t make it easy for the gardaí to reunite them with their property, with only 10% of owners able to provide gardaí with the bicycle’s frame number.

Specific operations are in place in Dublin city centre using ‘bait’ bikes to target bike thieves. Over recent weeks gardaí have been trialling the use of GPS trackers to test their effectiveness in preventing/detecting bike thefts. This testing is ongoing.

When gardaí recover stolen bicycles and can’t track down their owner, they regularly post them on flickr.com/photos/gardasiochana.

Inspector Liam Geraghty said bicycle owners should always lock their property, always report bike theft, and record the frame number of their bicycle.