541. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Justice the number of crimes that were recorded where the suspected offenders were on bail in each of the last three years, by county and category of offence, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9815/25]

Jim O'Callaghan, Minister for Justice: It is important to note that restricting a person’s liberty is a serious issue, given the Constitutional presumption that a person is deemed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The Bail Act contains robust provisions on both dealing with and pre-empting breaches of bail.  Where an individual fails to comply with any bail conditions, the judge may issue a bench warrant, mandating An Garda Síochána to arrest and bring the person before the court.

Furthermore, a Garda member may immediately arrest a person without a warrant where the member has reasonable cause to suspect that that person has breached, or is about to breach, a bail condition and the member considers the arrest necessary to prevent harm to, interference with, or intimidation of a victim or witness.

Finally, it is worth noting that, under section 11 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 as amended, any sentence of imprisonment for an offence committed while on bail shall run consecutive to any sentence for a previous offence. Furthermore, the fact that the offence was committed while on bail must be treated as an aggravating factor in sentencing and result in a higher sentence than would otherwise have been given.

In relation to the specific data requested by the Deputy, the table below, as provided by An Garda Síochána, outlines the number of crime incidents reported in each year where the incident record indicated at least one of the persons associated with the incident as a “Suspected Offender” were flagged as having been suspected of committing the offence while on bail.

*Figures collated based on PULSE data as of 28 February, 2025 and are operational and may be liable to change.

In terms of offence type, data available for 2024 indicates that the most common offence types committed by offenders on bail were:

• Public Order / Drunkenness (25%)
• Theft from Shop (23%)
• Simple Possession (6%) - relates to a person who is in possession of a controlled drug for their own personal use.
• Criminal Damage (5%)