Updated: 13.55

There has been an 18% increase in the number of homicides - or an additional 234 incidents - over a 14 year period.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) had stopped publishing crime figures due to quality issues with the data provided by An Garda Síochána.

But in Quarterly Recorded Crime statistics published Wednesday, there are revisions across all crime groups for the period 2003 to 2016.

They are published under a new category entitled 'Under Reservation'.

The review has seen a 43% jump in manslaughter, with 135 cases counted by the CSO, up from the original figure of 94.

There was an increase of 23% in the number of fraud, deception and related offences recorded in 2017 compared to 2016.

Sexual offences rose by 16.9% over the same period from 2,520 to 2,945.

There was also an increase of 13% (from 16,640 offences to 18,803) in attempts or threats to murder, assaults, harassments and related offences.

Weapons and explosives offences rose by 235 (or 11%) to 2,367 offences for 2017.

Dangerous driving leading to death figures were up by almost 40% - the original figure of 504 was revised upwards to 700.

Policing Authority response

The Policing Authority has welcomed the resumed publication of crime statistics.

The body said: "It is important for public confidence the best available data is publicly available.

"The authority will engage with the Central Statistics Office to ensure that the data published today is consistent with reports provided to the authority regarding homicides in particular.

"The authority has noted the comments from the CSO that there are likely to be further revisions, that they have ongoing concerns about the quality of data, and that those concerns are not confined to the homicide group of crimes.

"This is consistent with concerns which the authority has expressed throughout 2017, concerns which are ongoing and which have ensured that the quality of Garda Síochána data is an enduring matter on the authority’s agenda which it will continue to raise and interrogate across all of its oversight work."