A child arrested in Ireland: rights at the Garda station and what a parent should do

A phone call from a Garda station about your child is the start of a process with rules written for exactly this moment. The Children Act 2001 sets out what the Garda must do when a child under 18 is arrested, what you are entitled to, and what the child is entitled to. This guide goes through it in the order it happens: the call, your presence at questioning, the solicitor and who pays, the interview, searches and samples, charge and bail, and what to do as a parent. It applies in the Republic of Ireland to any child from the age of criminal responsibility, 12, up to the eighteenth birthday.

The Garda must tell you

When a child is arrested and brought to a Garda station, the member in charge of the station must, as soon as practicable, inform a parent or guardian of the arrest, the reason for it and the station, and ask them to attend without delay. If the parent cannot be contacted or cannot attend, the Garda must ask the child to name another adult relative or another adult, and if that fails the member in charge arranges for an adult to attend. The Garda may also inform Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, where the child is in care or where there is a welfare concern.

You are entitled to know which station, what the child is suspected of, and whether a solicitor has been contacted. Ask for the name of the member in charge; that is the garda responsible for the child's treatment in custody.

Being present at questioning

The Act provides that a child in custody is not to be questioned, or asked to make a statement, unless a parent or guardian is present, or, where a parent cannot attend or is excluded, another adult provided for by the Act. The exceptions are narrow: the Garda can proceed where waiting would involve a risk of injury to someone or of serious loss of or damage to property, or where the parent is the complainant or is suspected of involvement, in which case another adult is substituted.

Your presence is a right, not a courtesy. You can ask for a break, you can ask that the solicitor be waited for, and you can say that the child wishes to say nothing. You cannot answer for the child and you should not. If you are excluded, ask the member in charge to record why.

A solicitor, and who pays

Every arrested person, child or adult, has the right to consult a solicitor in private, and the Garda must tell the child of it in a way the child understands. The Garda Station Legal Advice Revised Scheme pays for the solicitor where the family is on a social welfare payment or gross earnings are under €20,316 a year. Ask the member in charge for a solicitor and say that you want the scheme. The solicitor can come to the station, advise the child before the interview, and sit in on it.

If you have a solicitor already, give the name. If you have none, the station keeps a list, and the member in charge contacts one. The Garda cannot choose the child's solicitor for you, but you can accept whoever is available, because waiting for a named solicitor who cannot come is not in the child's interest.

The 2026 criminal legal aid dispute concerned court certificates; the Garda station scheme is administered separately by the Legal Aid Board and continued. If the case later goes to court, criminal legal aid is a separate application to the judge, with the parents' means counted, explained at /legal-aid.

The caution and the interview

Before any question about the offence the child is cautioned that they are not obliged to say anything unless they wish to do so, but that anything they do say may be given in evidence. The caution means what it says. A child is entitled to say nothing, and to say that they want to wait for the solicitor.

Interviews of children are recorded. The garda should use plain language and allow breaks. The Act requires that a child be kept apart from adult detainees and, so far as practicable, not held in a cell. If you see something that is not right, say so to the member in charge, and tell the solicitor.

Whatever is said at the station matters later in two directions. An admission can be the basis of a charge. It is also, under the Act, the basis of admission to the Garda Youth Diversion Programme, which deals with most children who accept responsibility without any prosecution. That is a decision for after advice, not before it, and a solicitor can explain it before the interview; A child charged: the Garda Youth Diversion Programme comes first explains the Programme.

Searches, fingerprints, photographs and samples

The Garda can search an arrested child and seize property. Fingerprints and photographs can be taken under the Criminal Justice Act 1984 for an arrest under that Act, and the Act and the Children Act regulate when a parent's consent or presence is needed for a child; the solicitor can say whether a request is lawful. A sample for drink or drug driving, where a child of 17 is arrested driving, is taken under the road traffic law in the same way as for an adult. Ask what is being taken and under what power, and ask that the answer be recorded.

Charge, bail and the court date

Three things can happen at the end of the detention. The child can be released without charge, with the file sent to the Garda Youth Diversion Bureau or to the DPP (see the glossary). The child can be charged, sign a charge sheet and be released on station bail to you, with a date for the Children Court, often within a few days. Or, if the member in charge refuses station bail, the child is held and brought before the next sitting of the District Court, which decides bail under the Bail Act 1997; the court sits in private as the Children Court for that purpose.

Station bail for a child usually means release into the care of a parent or guardian who undertakes to bring the child to court, with conditions such as a curfew or staying away from a place. Breach of bail is itself an offence. Keep the charge sheet; it has the date, the court and the conditions. What the court then does is in The Children Court, and the Children Court can still refer a charged child back to the Diversion Programme.

A child who is not charged and hears nothing for weeks is not forgotten. The Bureau's assessment, or a summons application, takes time. If you have heard nothing after three months, the local juvenile liaison officer can tell you whether a referral is being considered.

Children under 12

A child under 12 cannot be arrested for an offence, because they cannot commit one in law, with the exception for the most serious offences at 10 and 11. If a garda brings a child under 12 home or to a station, it is under the Garda's powers to protect a child, and the Garda may make a referral to Tusla. The Garda Youth Diversion Programme does not apply.

What a parent should do

• Go to the station as soon as you are called, and bring identification. If you cannot, name an adult who can and tell the Garda how to reach them.
• Ask for the member in charge and for the reason for the arrest.
• Ask for a solicitor before any interview, and ask for the Garda Station Legal Advice scheme.
• Tell the child, calmly, that they do not have to answer questions until the solicitor has advised them. Do not answer for them.
• Do not discuss the facts with the child in the station beyond that; the walls are not private and a parent's account can become evidence.
• Write down the times: the call, your arrival, the solicitor's arrival, the interview, the release. Keep the charge sheet and any bail conditions.
• If the child is released on bail, make sure the court date is in your diary and the conditions are understood by everyone at home.
• Tell nobody who does not need to know. The child's identity is protected by law in the Children Court and the Programme is confidential; a post naming the child, the school or the other children is a breach of that and damaging in every other way.
• Afterwards, if the child's behaviour is a worry, the family does not need to wait for a court or a juvenile liaison officer to look for help.

Where this leaves you

The station is where a child's case is shaped: whether an admission is made and on what advice, whether a solicitor was present, whether the Garda followed the Act. Your presence and the solicitor's are the two protections the law gives, and both are free to ask for.

Most children who accept responsibility after advice are dealt with under the Garda Youth Diversion Programme and never go to court. If the case does go to the Children Court, /legal-aid explains how the judge decides legal aid and what the statement of means asks; if you may qualify, ask the judge for it at the first appearance. /find-a-court gives the office for the court the charge sheet names.