The number of men reporting sexual offences to the gardaí rose by more than half between 2023 and 2024, according to new figures published by the Central Statistics Office.
This coincided with a near doubling of male victims reporting historic incidents of sexual abuse to gardaí in the same period, up from 333 in 2023 to 645 in 2024.
74% of the total 869 male victims who reported incidents of sexual offences in 2024 reported incidents of historic sexual abuse, which in this context means that an incident that took place more than a year before it was reported to gardaí.
The CSO figures also show that the majority (95%) of recorded male victims of historic crime incidents of sexual offences were under 18 when the incident occurred.
Two thirds (67%) of female victims of historic crime incidents of sexual offences were under 18 years of age at the time of the crime.
In total, half (50%) of all recorded victims of sexual offences, historic or recent, were under 18 when the incident happened.
Information on relationships between offenders and victims
The CSO has also published information that sheds light on the relationships between victims of crime and the suspected offenders.
It found, for example, that a suspected offender was known to the victim in seven out of every ten, or 70%, of recorded incidents of sexual offences in 2023, where the suspected offender was identified by 2025.
"Looking at the nature of the relationship in more detail, we found that in 16% of detected crime incidents of sexual offences, the suspected offender was a friend or acquaintance of the victim and was a blood relative in 13% of incidents," CSO Statistician Jim Dalton said.
"Current or former intimate partners or spouses accounted for 8% of all suspected offenders for this type of offence."
Murders, assaults, harassments and related offences
In cases of attempted murder or threats to murder, assaults, harassments and related offences in 2023, the suspected offender was known to the victim in two-thirds (65%) of those crimes detected by 2025.
Almost seven out of every ten - or 69% - of crime incidents of Harassment & Related offences in 2023, that were detected by 2025, involved a female victim. In most cases, the suspected offender was a male.
A quarter (23%) of the suspected offenders in such crimes in 2023 were under 18 years when the crime incident took place.
Turning to assault crime incidents from 2023, nearly two-thirds (65%) of suspected offenders were aged between 18 and 44 years and 16% were under 18 years when the incident took place.
Similarly two-thirds (65%) of suspected offenders of crime incidents of detected Homicide & Related offences from 2023 were aged between 18 and 44 years when the incident occurred.
These new figures on Recorded Crime Victims in 2024 and Suspected Offenders in 2023 are based on recorded crime data collected by An Garda Síochána on their PULSE system.
