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A new report from the Law Society of Ireland’s Centre for Justice and Law Reform has revealed that Ireland recorded an average of 57.5 sexual offences per 100,000 people between 2019 and 2023, 43 per cent higher than the EU average of just over 40 per 100,000.
The study, described as the first comprehensive international comparison of Ireland’s justice system, drew on more than 100 data sources covering trust in institutions, policing, courts and prisons. It noted that rising recorded sexual offences are a Europe-wide trend, often attributed to greater victim confidence, improved reporting procedures and broader legal definitions rather than a rise in actual incidents.
Theft and related offences in Ireland were 14% above the EU average over the same period. The findings have prompted renewed questions about possible contributing factors unique to Ireland.
In November 2025, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan highlighted that Ireland’s population grew by 1.6 per cent in the previous year, seven times the EU average, almost entirely driven by net migration. He described the pace of growth as placing unsustainable pressure on housing, public services and state capacity, prompting the introduction of stricter immigration measures.
Critics and commentators have asked whether Ireland’s exceptionally high migration intake could be linked to the elevated sexual offence recordings. Unlike many EU countries, Ireland does not publish detailed breakdowns of sexual offence suspects or convictions by nationality or migrant background, making direct analysis impossible here. The Women’s Coalition on Immigration, launched late last year by barrister Laoise de Brún, has called for these statistics to be recorded and published.
In contrast, Sweden, which also reports one of the highest per capita rates of sexual offences in Europe and attributes much of the increase to high reporting rates and broad definitions, routinely tracks crime by immigrant background through its National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå). A major 2025 peer-reviewed study examining rape convictions in Sweden over a 21-year period found a strong association with immigrant background, even after adjusting for socio-economic factors. Only 36.9 per cent of those convicted of rape were Swedish-born with two Swedish-born parents, compared to 69.5 per cent in a matched control group from the general population. This indicates significant over-representation among individuals with foreign-born backgrounds, who make up roughly one-third of Sweden’s population.
Similar patterns have been documented in Germany, where federal crime statistics (BKA) break down suspects by nationality. Non-German nationals, approximately 15 per cent of the population, consistently account for a disproportionate share of suspects in sexual offences, historically around 35–40 per cent in recent years.
While the Law Society report emphasises the EU-wide nature of rising recorded sexual offences and points to improved reporting as the primary driver, the absence of nationality or migrant-background data in Ireland leaves open the question of whether migration levels are playing a role here, as they appear to in some comparable European countries that do publish such breakdowns.
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