Emergency legislation to ensure that adults can be prosecuted for soliciting sexual acts from children was passed by the Dáil last night following the Labour Party's highlighting of a loophole last week.
Under the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Amendment Bill, adults will face up to five years in jail, while gardaí will have powers to arrest suspects for questioning, which they have not been able to do up to now.
Acknowledging that a gap existed, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell said it was "not as significant as has been claimed in some quarters".
And the Minister rejected Labour charges that the Government's legislation was unconstitutional because it does not allow for an accused to argue that he did not know the age of a child.
Under the 1993 Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act, adults were liable for a Ir£1,000 fine, and up to 12 months in jail, if they were convicted of soliciting sexual acts from a child.
The soliciting offence in the 1993 legislation was superseded by the 2000 Children's Act, though this only marginally increased the possible fine from Ir£1,000 to €1,900, leaving the possible jail sentence unchanged.
Legislation passed last year in the wake of the statutory rape crisis, when a man was released at one point even though he had had sex with a 12-year-old girl, had "regrettably" omitted to repeat such powers, the Minister said. However he denied that children had been left vulnerable to sexual predators since powers to convict soliciting of minors included in 1993 legislation had not been used for several years.
The number of soliciting prosecutions taken plummeted in the wake of the introduction of the Children's Act, possibly because of legal fears that the conviction threshold had been increased
Labour Party TD, Brendan Howlin pointed out that 55 prosecutions had been undertaken in 2000 using the 1993 legislation, brought in by Fianna Fáil's Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, leading to 34 convictions.
The majority of these cases, lawyers indicated last night, dealt with adults who approached children outside schools, in public lavatories, or in similar such places seeking sexual favours.
Following the introduction of the Children's Act, however, the numbers of prosecutions for soliciting fell to just two in 2001; none in 2003; two in 2004 and none again in 2005.
Condemning the speed with which child protection legislation is repeatedly rushed through the Oireachtas, Mr Howlin said four debates had been guillotined in the last year: "The public will not countenance another cock-up."
A new offence, first proposed by Fine Gael three years ago, of meeting a child, or travelling to meet a child for the purposes of sexual exploitation - known as "grooming" - is created under the new legislation.
Under this offence anyone "within the State" who "intentionally meets, or travels with the intention of meeting, a child" for sex, having communicated with that child twice or more, beforehand, could face 14 years in jail.
The legislation passed all Dáil stages last night and will to go to Seanad today.