34 deaths happened in 2021 alone.
Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has confirmed that 228 people have died in or following Garda custody since 2007.
The statistics were released via a letter addressed to People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy on Thursday (14 July), which Murphy subsequently published on his Twitter account.
The Minister for Justice said that An Garda Síochána themselves must determine if the threshold has been reached to refer an incident to GSOC under section 102, as referred to in the
Garda Síochána Act 2005.
"Under subsection 102(1) of the Act, the Garda Commissioner shall refer to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) any matter that appears to the Garda Commissioner to indicate that the conduct of a member of An Garda Síochána may have resulted in the death of, or serious harm to, a person," McEntee wrote.
"I am informed that it has been the practice of GSOC in its annual reporting to provide overviews of the circumstances that led to any section 102 referrals in a given reporting year, including the proportion of referrals that arose from deaths," McEntee wrote.
"However, until their most recent 2021 annual report, a breakdown of the circumstances of those deaths had not, as a matter of course, been disaggregated in these annual reports so it is not possible for GSOC to draw such figures from these results."
192 deaths have occurred between 2007 and 2020, without a breakdown of the nature of each of these deaths identified.
34 people died in Garda custody in 2021, the highest number in the shared statistics.
Nine people died following Garda contact, and six deaths occurred in Garda custody, including persons who passed away subsequently in hospital.
Five people died following release from Garda custody while five more died in a road traffic collision while in pursuit, with two others dying in other road traffic collisions.
One person died while being restrained or arrested, and six people died in other circumstances.
Paul Murphy tweeted the letter to his personal account, describing the figures featured as "extremely concerning".
https://twitter.com/paulmurphy_TD/status/1547571927660654593?s=20&t=7ZBlCwTJf8x4XT1HaIFzgw
