To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many cases of domestic violence were reported to the police in Northern Ireland in each of the last three years, broken down by (a) district command unit and (b) council area. (94965)

Statistics on domestic violence incidents are available from the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The following table details the numbers of incidents reported to PSNI in the last three years—2003-04 (16,926), 2004-05 (20,959), and 2005-06 (23,059)—and breaks these figures down further according to District Command Units. These figures are also representative of council areas. It is worth noting that these figures do not represent the prevalence of the problem, as domestic violence is seriously under reported.