There is currently no offence under Irish law for soliciting a child for sex, Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte claimed in the Dáil today.
As a Garda investigation into an alleged Dublin paedophile ring continues, Mr Rabbitte said that emergency legislation passed through the Oireachtas last summer omitted an offence of soliciting or importuning a child for sexual purposes.
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte
"According to my legal advice, it is no longer an offence to solicit or importune a minor for sexual purposes, and I want to ask the Tánaiste if there is any legislation contemplated to shut off the loopholes as a result of last summer's rushed legislation," he said.
The Criminal Law Sexual Offences Bill 2006 was fast-tracked through the Dáil and Seanad last July after it emerged that there could be a loophole in the law where a child rapist could claim in his defence that he made an honest mistake about his victim's age.
Tánaiste Michael McDowell, who was representing the Taoiseach in the Dáil, said he believed gardaí had legal powers to carry out their investigation into the alleged child sex abuse ring and that he could correct the law at a later date if required.
"I haven't examined it at all. This is the first time that the issue has been raised with me," he said.
"I know that the gardaí believe they have an adequate legal basis for conducting their inquiries into matters which are the subject of public concern at the moment.
"If there was any requirement for any change in the law, in the next couple of weeks, we will be publishing a major criminal justice statute, and I would deal with the matter in that context if there were such a problem."
Mr McDowell also said today that the Government had approved the early stages of the Trafficking and Sexual Offences Bill last July and that it is being drafted in the parliamentary counsel's office.
He also said there were provisions under Section 2 of the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, which deals with any information being used on the Internet to imply that a child is available for sexual exploitation.
"In regard to the particular question, if one particular offence has been repealed by the legislation which this House put through last summer, I'm not in a position to answer the deputy at this point," he told the Dáil.
Mr Rabbitte replied: "It seems to me, and I double-checked this, that there is no offence under our criminal law at the moment for the soliciting or importuning a minor for sexual purposes. There is no Bill yet published."