A leading criminologist says an increase in the number of homicides and manslaughters in Ireland last year is worrying but overall crime statistics for 2012 released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) yesterday are "very good".

There were 60 murders and manslaughters last year. That is 15 more violent deaths than in 2011. Sexual offences also went up but there were drops in many other areas.

Sexual offences were up by 2.2% to 2,059, burglary and related offences were up by 0.3% while fraud, deception and the like were up by 3%.

Overall fall in crime

However all other crimes showed a decrease. This was seen particularly in attempts or threats to murder, assaults, harassments and related offences which were down by 10%. Weapons offences were also down significantly as were public order offences.

Homicide offences increased in most regions with the exceptions of the West and South. Likewise sexual offences increases were seen in most regions excluding the south-east and Dublin Metropolitan regions.

There was also a decrease in the number of dangerous driving leading to death offences from 21 in 2011 to 18 in 2012.

John O'Keefe is a criminologist at Trinity College in Dublin. He says the homicide figures are worse than they look at first glance.