MORE than €3,000 worth of goods is taken during an average burglary, with more than €72m worth of property stolen from households in the past year.
The economic downturn has also heightened people’s fears about the threat of crime as 77% believe they are more at risk now of being robbed than in the past. Almost seven out of 10 people said they had also become more security conscious.
Not surprisingly, Dublin is the location for the most burglaries accounting for one-third of all such crimes followed by Kildare, Cork, Wicklow, Limerick and Meath.
The counties with the lowest recorded number of break-ins are Leitrim, Kerry, Longford, Mayo and Roscommon.
According to the annual Eircom Phonewatch Burglary Report, which analysed house break-ins that occurred between July 2008 and June 2009, 88% of burglaries took place while the house’s occupants were at home.
November is the most lucrative period for burglars accounting for over 10% of all incidents. In contrast, February, May, July and August recorded the least number of break-ins which suggests the cover of darkness in winter is regularly exploited by criminals.
Friday is the day of the week on which homes are most likely to be burgled. The most likely time of day for burglaries is between noon and 4pm.
The study, which was based on the analysis of more than 24,400 insurance claims, said its crime figures had shown the first decrease in burglaries since 2005 with the number of break-ins down 12.6%.
However, new crime data published by the Central Statistics Office last week indicated that the number of burglaries has jumped significantly again in recent months. The CSO figures revealed burglaries rose by 26.2% during the third quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, November 04, 2009
