The hours after an arrest follow a fixed sequence. Knowing what it is will not make it pleasant, but it will stop you being surprised into a mistake.
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If someone is in a Garda station now, calling or WhatsApp is far faster than this form.
Almost everything that decides a Garda station detention happens before the first interview starts. Here is that hour, in order.
You should be told in ordinary language what offence is suspected and which power you are being arrested under. Listen to it and try to hold on to it. It is the single most useful piece of information you have, and you will be asked for it when you ring a solicitor.
This is a specific role, not just whoever is at the desk. The member in charge is responsible for your welfare and your rights while you are in the station, and for the custody record.
From this moment everything is written down with a time against it: when you arrived, when you asked for a solicitor, when you were fed, when each interview started and stopped. That document is later disclosed. It is the reason precise requests matter.
Read it, even if you are certain you already know what it says. Then say out loud that you want a solicitor, and name the firm. Ask for the request to be recorded.
Phone, keys, belt, laces, jewellery. This is routine. The list is signed and the property returned when you leave.
In person or by phone, and in private. Questioning should not begin before the solicitor you have asked for has had the chance to advise you. If an interview starts anyway, say again, on the record, that you have asked for a solicitor and are not answering until one arrives.
Arrest is not charge, and charge is not conviction. A great many Garda station detentions end with no charge at all. What you do in the first hour has more effect on which way yours goes than anything you can do later.
It depends entirely on which power you are detained under, and the range is wide: six hours at one end, seven days at the other.
Most people are detained in connection with an arrestable offence, where the initial period is six hours. It can be extended twice: once by a superintendent, once by a chief superintendent, to twenty-four hours in total. Detention under the Offences Against the State Act runs longer, and drug-trafficking and certain serious-offence powers longer again, with the later extensions requiring a judge rather than a Garda officer. The exact periods and extension steps for each power are set out in the table on our Garda station solicitor guide.
Ask which power you are detained under, and ask for the answer to be recorded. It determines how long this can last, who has to authorise each extension, and what has to be shown before they can.
The detention clock is not the wall clock. Detention can be suspended overnight for a rest period, and suspended time does not count towards the total. A twenty-four hour detention can comfortably span two calendar days. This is the single most common shock for families waiting outside, and the most common reason a promised release time passes with nothing happening.
An extension is not automatic and it is not a formality. An officer of the required rank has to be satisfied that continued detention is necessary for the proper investigation of the offence, and the grounds go into the custody record. You should be told that it has happened.
This is one of the places where having a solicitor already involved changes things. The custody record is later disclosed, the grounds are later read, and an extension that was authorised without the required consideration is something that can be raised. Nobody raises it eight months later if nobody noticed it at 2am.
Not one long interrogation. Usually several sessions, recorded, with breaks between them, and the breaks are as important as the sessions.
You get a private consultation. Your solicitor establishes what the allegation is and what disclosure the Gardaí are willing to give, then advises you. This is the conversation that shapes everything after it.
Interviews are conducted by two members, recorded, and time-limited. Your solicitor can be present. Their job is not to answer for you: it is to intervene where a question is unfair or misstates what you have said, and to stop the interview when something new is put to you.
You are entitled to speak to your solicitor again, and you should. Advice given before interview one is advice given on incomplete information. By interview three you usually know considerably more about the case than you did, and the right answer can change.
You will be asked to read and sign a memo of the interview. Read it slowly. If it does not match what you said, say so and have that recorded rather than signing and hoping to correct it later.
Whether to answer, whether to answer some questions and not others, and whether to give a prepared statement are judgements made question by question, not a single decision taken at the door. Our page on the right to silence and Garda questioning sets out when a court can be invited to draw an inference from a refusal to answer, and the conditions that have to be met first.
Every Garda station detention ends in one of three ways. It is worth knowing which one you are in, because they feel similar and mean completely different things.
The detention ends and no charge follows. Your property is returned and you sign out. This is a real and common outcome, not a technicality.
It does not always mean the matter is closed forever, but it does mean there is nothing to answer today.
You go home, but an investigation file goes to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who decides whether to prosecute. No charge today. No decision today either.
This is the outcome people misread most often. See below.
You are formally charged and given charge sheets with a court date. You are then either released on station bail or brought before the next available court.
From this point it is a court case, and the priorities change.
People walk out of a station believing this sentence means it is over. It does not, and treating it as though it does is how good positions get lost.
It means the investigation is finished or nearly finished, and a decision on whether to prosecute now sits with the Director of Public Prosecutions rather than with the Gardaí who interviewed you. It is a genuine decision with a genuine possibility of no prosecution. It is also not quick. Weeks is normal. Months is not unusual.
What matters is what you do with that time.
If a decision to prosecute follows, it usually reaches you as a summons or a charge, sometimes long after you had stopped expecting it. Keep your address up to date with anyone who might need it, and open the post.
Two routes out of the station, and the difference between them is the difference between sleeping at home and not.
You are released from the station with charge sheets and a date for the District Court, usually with conditions attached: an address to reside at, sometimes a signing-on condition, sometimes a condition not to contact named people.
Conditions are not suggestions. Breaching one is a separate problem and it is the fastest way to turn a bail case into a custody case.
If station bail is refused you are held and brought before the next available court, which can include a special sitting at a weekend or on a bank holiday.
Bail is then argued in court. That is a hearing with evidence, and it is not one to attend unrepresented.
If there is any chance of a court bail application, an independent surety may be needed, with proof of address and of means. Assembling that at nine o’clock on the morning of the hearing is much harder than assembling it the night before. If a family member is reading this, our page on what to do when a family member has been arrested sets out what to have ready.
None of these are unusual. All of them are avoidable.
It is not read that way, and it is not what decides cases. What decides cases is agreeing, in a recorded interview, to a version of events written by someone else.
You are entitled to nominate your own. If you asked for a particular firm and are told they could not be reached, ask for the attempts to be recorded, with times.
Nothing you sign at 4am gets you out sooner. It only turns a conversation into a document.
See the DPP section above. Release without charge and release pending a file are different doors.
Anyone you talk to can be asked what you said. That includes family, and it very much includes group chats.
The questions people ring us with in the hours after an arrest.
It depends on the power you are detained under. For most arrestable offences it is six hours initially, extendable by a further six hours by a superintendent and a further twelve by a chief superintendent, for twenty-four hours in total. Detention under the Offences Against the State Act can run to seventy-two hours with judicial authorisation, and drug-trafficking and certain serious-offence powers can reach seven days. Time can also be suspended overnight for a rest period, so a twenty-four hour detention may span more than one calendar day.
No. Arrest, charge and conviction are three separate things, and a great many Garda station detentions end with no charge at all. A detention ends in one of three ways: you are released without charge, you are released while an investigation file goes to the Director of Public Prosecutions for a decision, or you are charged and given a court date.
It means the Gardaí are not charging you today, and the decision on whether to prosecute now rests with the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is a real decision with a real possibility of no prosecution, but it is not fast: weeks is normal and months is not unusual. In the meantime, do not contact anyone connected to the allegation, do not post about it, and write down what you remember while it is fresh.
Questioning should not begin before the solicitor you have asked for has had a chance to advise you. If an interview starts anyway, say again, on the record, that you have requested a solicitor and that you are not answering questions until one has advised you, and ask for that to be noted in the custody record.
It is the written record the member in charge keeps of your time in the station: when you arrived, when you asked for a solicitor, when each interview began and ended, what you were given and when. It is disclosed later, which is why it is worth asking for specific things to be recorded at the time rather than describing them from memory months afterwards.
You are held and brought before the next available court, which can include a special sitting at a weekend or on a bank holiday, and bail is argued there. That is a hearing with evidence. An independent surety with proof of address and means may be needed, so it is worth getting that organised the night before rather than on the morning.
If you or someone you know is in a Garda station, the useful thing to do is not to read further. Ring us. We will find out what the detention is about, tell you where you stand, assess whether legal aid covers the advice, and if someone needs to be at the station, we will get there.
General information, not legal advice. This page describes Irish criminal procedure in general terms. Every case turns on its own facts and the law changes. Nothing here creates a solicitor–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied. For advice on your own situation, speak to a solicitor.
Ferrys Solicitors LLP is regulated by the Legal Services Regulatory Authority. Content reviewed by Tony Collier, solicitor. Last reviewed PENDING.
