Jane McGowan

Jane McGowan, chair of the Irish Criminal Bar Association (ICBA), told a recent conference that the 2012 Directive gives suspects the right to study the prosecutor’s case file before they are interviewed, The Sunday Times reports.

Ms McGowan told the Bar of Ireland conference that the Directive should have been transposed into Irish law in 2014 but had not been.

She told The Sunday Times: “When the directive says rights are now afforded to suspects, it seems the rights that come when you are arrested now flow even when you first walk into a garda station as a suspect.

“That’s extraordinarily far-reaching because there are so many times people go into a garda station thinking they are co-operating. They give a voluntary statement under caution and end up being a suspect or being prosecuted.”

Ms McGowan said she believes a person charged with an offence will eventually launch a legal challenge on the basis they were not given access to the case file.

However, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice said it believes the “Irish practice in terms of when case materials are disclosed is fully in line with the directive”.