A total of 1,600 reports of domestic violence were made over the Christmas week, representing an all-time high in incidents in a seven-day period, the Policing Authority has been told.
The meeting heard that gardai usually receive 1,200 calls about domestic violence each week but that this number spiked over the Christmas holidays.
Andrew O’Sullivan, the gardai chief information officer, said the number of domestic abuse incidents reported to them continues to increase, adding it was particularly “stark” over the Christmas period.
He said that there has been a 5% increase in the number of reported incidents this year compared to 2024.
We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity.
“It’s roughly a five to 10% increase year on year, every year, and we’re seeing the same trend again in 2025.
“It’s already up 5% on 2024,” Mr O’Sullivan told the Policing Authority meeting.
“Some of that possibly is due to an increased prevalence. We think it’s more likely down to the fact that there’s less tolerance in society.
“There’s more supports available, both from a legislation point of view, and from the justice sector, and from a garda perspective.
“So we’re seeing more reports coming in, which is welcome that more and more people are coming forward.
“But that was very stark over the Christmas period.
“It is quite a common period when people are together over holiday periods, and that includes bank holidays and Easter and particularly over the Christmas period.
“More reporting is good, but we reached an all time high over Christmas with 1,600 incidents over the Christmas week period, so that’s an all-time high on a one-week period.
“The norm, again, still high numbers, is usually about 1,200, so it spiked from a normal week, if you could call it that, of about 1,200 up to 1,600 over just the Christmas period.
“It’s now returned down to about 1,200 again, but a very high instance.
“One of the things that was very notable, though, was that the callback rate and the engagement rate from guards, even though the the number of incidents increased dramatically, was then in preparation for that, because we watched these trends very carefully, there was still the same level engagement and service offer to those victims, the same level of callbacks and engagement with them.”
The meeting was told that one call in relation to domestic violence is made every nine minutes in Ireland.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said that an increase in violent pornography has had an impact on the nature of sexual offending.
He warned that the adult pornography industry is unregulated and not policed, and that everyone has access to it.
Mr Harris added: “I think the difficult thing is that over the last period, and I’m talking over maybe two to three decades, the prevalence of violent pornography on the internet, that that has had an impact in respect of the nature of some of the sexual offending that we see reported in terms of the violence perpetrated, the modus operandi of the attack, and how it’s been perpetrated.
“The normalisation of violence against women through very violent pornography, and in effect, that violent adult pornography is almost an unregulated space.
“So much of our effort has to be directed towards child abuse online, that this violent pornography is in effect unpoliced and very available on the internet and available now to anyone really that has a computer or smartphone.”
Mr Harris said said he would encourage people to report domestic violence incidents to gardai, friend or a solicitor.
“If they don’t feel able to do that, then they should seek assistance, perhaps with one of the charities or NGOs working in the domestic abuse sector.
“Once the conversation starts, it’s easier then to repeat that conversation.
“It has to be emphasised that a victim of domestic abuse is in grave danger.
“They and other family members are in grave danger, and the quicker that systems can be found, in whatever shape or form that might be, then that should happen.”