Covid sees sharp rise in domestic violence levels

Domestic violence spiralled last year during the pandemic – but the national public health crisis helped to reduce nearly all other criminal activity in County Galway.

That’s according to the latest Garda local crime statistics for 2020, which reveal that domestic violence incidents shot up by 39% compared with the previous year.

A total of 538 domestic disputes where no offence was disclosed were detected by Gardaí in County Galway last year, up by 152 incidents on the previous year’s stats.

No offence disclosed is a domestic abuse incident where Gardaí are called to a house but the victim does not make a statement of complaint.

There were a further 68 domestic incidents where barring orders, safety orders and protection orders were breached. That’s up 6% year-on-year, according to the Garda report presented to the latest Joint Policing Committee (JPC) meeting.

Read the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download our digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie