There were 22 fewer murders in Ireland in 2015 compared to the year before but there was a big increase in sexual offences, official figures show.
The number of murders in Ireland fell to 30 last year from 52 in 2014, according to the figures from the Central Statistics Office.
There were two cases of manslaughter and 25 deaths recorded as crimes caused by dangerous driving.
The number of sexual offences rose by 15% to 2,361, with the number of recorded rapes increasing from 476 to 536.
There were 26,246 recorded burglary and related offences last year, representing a decrease of 1,389, or down 5%, compared with 2014.
The number of aggravated burglaries dropped by nearly 14%.
Robbery and hijacking offences fell by more than 2% to 2,584 recorded offences.
However, blackmail or extortion offences rose by nearly 150% to 52.
Last year, there were 15,128 drugs offences, a decrease of almost 5%.
10,979 of these offences were for possession of drugs for personal use, which was down 2.6% on 2014 numbers.
The CSO has advised that its review of the quality of Garda Síochána crime data, which was published in June 2015, should be taken into account when interpreting these figures.
This review found, for example, figures for assault and related offences were under-recorded by 38% due to a failure to record reported assaults, and misclassification.
Other areas of crimes were also identified as being under-recorded, including robbery, extortion and burglary offences.
The CSO conducted this review after the publication of a Garda Inspectorate report the previous November, which made 200 recommendations to improve recording procedures.
The CSO also suspended the publication of Recorded Crime Statistics pending the publication of its own report.
Following the publication of its 2015 review, the CSO resumed its reporting of the statistics.
