From legal advice to legal assistance: recognising the changing role of the solicitor in the Garda station

Abstract

The primary aim of this article is to encourage reflection by those working in the criminal justice sector on how recent developments, in Europe and Ireland, have brought significant changes for the work and role of criminal defence solicitors. These changes require specific skills and training and thus we provide an account of the ‘SUPRALAT’ training being rolled out in Ireland. But these changes also need to be accounted for in police, prosecutorial and judicial decision-making and we hope this article contributes to a wider and much-needed discourse on the role of the police interview in the criminal justice process