Alcohol plays a significant role in many fatal assaults that occur on the street, in licensed premises and at house parties, according to the Deputy State Pathologist Michael Curtis.
The forensic pathologist, who has worked here for almost nine years, said that gunshot wounds accounted for just over a third of murders in the State, followed by stabbings and blunt-force trauma.
He said that alcohol played a big role in many fatal assaults and that, in some cases, both the perpetrator and the victim had been drinking.
"Some of the homicides we see reflect a very severe level of violence," said Dr Curtis.
"While that is obvious in the case of the shootings, it's also the case in many of the stabbings we do, and in many of the blunt-force trauma deaths and the assaults we do, with kickings and stamping and so on. Some of those reflect an extreme level of violence.
"Certainly with the blunt-force trauma ones – it is violence where there would have to be a sustained assault over a period of time, maybe as much as several minutes.
Source: Georgina O'Halloran, Irish Independent, 29/07/2013
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