The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) yesterday published its submission to the joint Oireachtas committee on justice, home affairs and migration, which is currently carrying out pre-legislative scrutiny of the Children (Amendment) Bill 2024.

The bill, as it currently stands, proposes amendments to section 52 of the Children Act 2001, which provides for a general age of criminal responsibility of 12, with certain exceptions for serious offences.

A child under the age of 14 can only be prosecuted with consent from the director of public prosecutions, and the bill proposes to extend this rule to a child who turn 15 after the date of the alleged offence.

ICCL has urged the government to use the bill to further amend section 52(1) of the 2001 Act to state that a child under the age of 14 “shall not be charged with an offence”.

The NGO argues that such a move is required for Ireland to meet its obligations as a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

Ireland’s current age of criminal responsibility “makes it an outlier by European standards”, with Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Czechia and Finland having an age of 15 and Italy of Spain having an age of 14.

The most common minimum age of criminal responsibility is 14, according to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.