Call for urgent measures to protect children

Seanad reportIt was noteworthy that while one Cabinet member could have sought to anticipate an outcome to the Eurovision Song Contest, another had not done so in relation to the Supreme Court judgment on the law governing underage sex, Joanna Tuffy (Labour) said.

She said the House should have an amending Bill to consider before the end of the week if it was to show that it cared about children. Measures were needed to address the fact that we now had no absolute protection for children from sexual predators.

Ms Tuffy said she could not believe her ears when she heard a radio interview last week with Minister for Justice Michael McDowell on the issue. He had talked about there being no need to rush as there was no gaping legal hole. He had said that the sexual offences law would deal with the issue, which was untrue according to legal advice she had. The Minister had made flippant comments about 15-year-old girls and 23-year-old men. He had missed the point.

Joe O'Toole (Ind) said matters arising from the Supreme Court decision needed to be taken in two stages. The issue of the age of consent should be left to another day. However, judges should be empowered to decide that something might be statutory rape. That could be done within 48 hours.

Maurice Hayes (Ind) said the wider issue of what was to be done with Law Reform Commission reports should be considered by the House. "Here are these extremely worthy, energetic people devoting their time to producing reports which pile up on our desks and nobody seems to move them on."

Martin Mansergh (FF) said he thought the trouble was that sometimes the commission's recommendations were substantially in advance of public and political opinion at the time.

House leader Mary O'Rourke said there was unanimity in the House on the need for action as a result of the Supreme Court determination. People on her side of the chamber shared the moral outrage that was being felt throughout the land. "We all share a sense of being lost in this morass which has occurred and which we want to see resolved."

However, there was a separation of powers, and it was up to the Oireachtas to resolve the present legislative gap.

Responding to a call by Brian Hayes, Fine Gael leader in the House, that today's business be rearranged to provide for a debate on what steps needed to be taken to address the present gap in the law, Mrs O'Rourke undertook to see how they could discuss what was going to happen and where they were going "in this quagmire".