Seven out of ten victims of sexual offences knew their attacker, according to the latest recorded crime figures released today by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Almost half of the victims of sexual attacks last year were children.
The offender was also known to the victim in 63% of assaults, attempted murders and cases of harassment.
The figures also show a reduction in homicide offences in the last year and a drop in sexual offences in the last two years.
However, there was a marginal increase in the number of victims of assaults, attempted murder and harassment over the same period.
The majority of crime victims - 80% - were female, while almost half of all crime victims were children at the time of the incident.
Two thirds reported the crime to gardaí within a year, while one in five waited more than ten years before making a complaint.
There was also a marked increase in men reporting as victims of sexual offences in 2024, from 17% in 2022 to 27% - a 58% increase, as over 350 more victims came forward.
The figure dropped again to 20% or 609 male victims, last year.
The majority of victims of sex crime were female.
Ninety-nine-percent of all those suspected of committing offences detected by March of this year were male, with most aged between 18 and 59.
In the case of crimes against children, 33% were committed by a blood relative, with another 21% by a person in authority or with care responsibilities.
Other suspected offenders who knew the children account for 24% of these offences.
Strangers accounted for more than half (53%) of offences against people aged 18-29 and 40% of the crimes committed against people over 30.
Of the 66 victims of homicide last year, 40 were victims of murder or manslaughter, while the other 26 were killed by dangerous drivers.
Men were suspected of committing 82% of all homicides in 2024.
More men were victims of homicide over the four years from 2022 to 2025, increasing from 67% to 71% of all victims of murder, manslaughter or dangerous driving causing death, with a corresponding decrease in female victims.
