Mother tells RTE's Joe Duffy how son was booted in the head during beach mayhem

A heartbroken mother has told of a brutal incident which saw her teenage son kicked in the head and left with a rock pattern on his forehead in Meath.

Tania O'Neill appeared on RTE's Liveline after a group of "100-150ish" people went after her son and a few of his friends while they were taking a break from studying for their Leaving Cert in Bettystown.

The shocking incident took place on the seaside on Thursday evening, with Tania recalling the moment on national radio this afternoon.

She said: "He was studying hard at home and himself and a few of his friends decided to go to the beach for a bit of air between studying. They went down for an hour and were involved in a vicious, unprovoked attack on Thursday evening. It was between 7-8pm, there was plenty of people about.

"There was a gang of about 100-150ish just attacked for no reason. They were about 13-17 years old, they'd been drinking on the beach in the dunes all day and decided to run riot for no reason.

"They clipped their heels to get them on the ground, he was kicked in the end and his friend is actually in a worse state, he was also kicked and punched so hard that a pattern is left in his forehead. Their parents hadn't a clue where they were, so it was an easy target."

Tanya expanded on the main issue with the reaction - the lack of Garda manpower in the area.

Ashbourne Garda Station, Co Meath (stock) (Google Maps)

"The problem is, our Garda station for East Meath, which is a huge area - we're between North Dublin in Balbriggan and Louth which has Drogheda, but it's like the Gaza strip in the middle. Our station is Laytown, where there are three Gardaí a day manning a station that's open three hours. We have no phone number for them, so if you ring 999, you get Ashbourne Garda station which is 33km away. So it could take up to an hour and a half to get there.

"Drew Harris said he would deliver increased Garda visibility - that hasn't happened. We need a fully-manned Garda station. There was one Garda that night who couldn't do anything because he was overrun. A woman from the GAA club jumped on top of one of the lads to protect him."