More than 10,000 crimes committed by people in Cork on bail 

More than 10,000 crimes have been committed by people in Cork who were on bail since the start of 2022, figures have shown.

Between January and December 16 last year, 2,441 crimes were committed by people in Cork on bail. Of which, some 1,852 crimes were committed in Cork city and 589 in Cork county.

Nationally, 38,221 crimes were committed during this period. The main categories of offences were theft, public order, and drugs.

In Cork city and county combined, crimes committed by people while on bail totalled 2,357 in 2022; 2,676 in 2023; 2,769 in 2024.

Combined with the 2025 figure, 10,243 crimes were committed by people on bail over the four-year period.

Justice minister Jim O’Callaghan, who provided the figures to Sinn Féin TD Matt McCarthy on foot of a parliamentary question, said it was “totally unacceptable that offences are committed by people on bail”.

“That is a direct breach of their promise made when bail is granted by the court,” said Mr O’Callaghan.

Committed

He said that bail laws in Ireland are comprehensive, but he is “committed to ensuring they are fit for purpose while ensuring fundamental rights principles are adhered to”.

He appointed senior counsel Lorcan Stains to undertake an assessment of the current system.

His report, published in November 2025, underlines the need for additional actions to be taken, and a number of these recommendations are “under active consideration or in progress” by the Department of Justice, with a memorandum to be brought to Government “in due course”.

Both in Cork and nationally, the lowest figure was in 2022. Since early 2023, prisons have been consistently overcrowded, with 2022 being the last year that the average amount of people in Cork Prison and the prison system as a whole was under the official capacity.

Cork Sinn Féin TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said that overcrowding in Cork Prison, which had 408 inmates in custody on Thursday despite having a capacity for just 296, was contributing to the number of people offending while on bail in the city and county.

Dysfunctional

“The numbers here point to a really dysfunctional system, with bail conditions not being enforced, and some people who ought to be in prison on remand being given bail, because of a lack of prison space,” he said.

“On top of overcrowded prisons, add in the incredible delays to get to court, and get convictions. No wonder the bail system is creaking at the edges. Court cases are taking more than three times the European average, and criminal cases taking an average of 503 days.

“Unfortunately, then, it is not surprising that there is a serious problem with crimes being committed by those on bail.

“Gardaí need to have the resources and the personnel in the first place to ensure bail conditions are not being flouted. Unfortunately, this too often is not the case, and for victims of crime it is particularly upsetting when they find out that the person who committed the crime was either breaching bail or conceivably could have been in prison at the time.”