Sexual offences up by more than 14% on last year

Sexual offences have increased by 14% since last year.

According to the latest data from the Central Statistics Office, there were 2,262 sexual offences in the 12 months to the end of September this year.

That represents a 14.1% increase.

The figures from the CSO also show that between September 2014 and the same month this year homicides dropped by more than a third.

During that period homicides fell by 36%, due in most part to an almost halving in the murder rate from 57 instances in 2014 to 30 this year.

However, there were more than 16,600 attempts or threats to murder, assault, harassment and other related offences - an increase of 13.6%.

Burglaries were also up by more than 6% - while robbery, extortion and hijacking offences fell by 9.1%.

You can read the figures in full here.