Taoiseach's reactionTaoiseach Bertie Ahern has said he is sorry for the hurt caused to families directly affected by the Supreme Court's decision to strike down part of the statutory rape law, but insisted that the Government was not to blame for the crisis. He expressed "absolute confidence" in Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, and said that no information Attorney General Rory Brady might have been given could have changed the outcome.
Speaking in New York, where he is attending a UN meeting on Aids, Mr Ahern said he had been "shocked and dismayed" by the consequences of the Supreme Court decision.
"This is a worry for parents. It's a worry particularly for the small group of parents that are directly affected and I'm sorry for them more than anything else. I didn't cause this. I'm not blaming the Supreme Court. That's their job," he said.
Mr Ahern said the Government had acted immediately to draft legislation to address the problem created by the decision and praised the Minister for Justice.
"I have absolute confidence in the Minister for Justice. We have not had to rush this through because of the reaction of anybody other than the actions of the Supreme Court. So let's get that very correct. There's no reaction to anything. It's the action of the Supreme Court, which is their right, to strike down a law," he said.
The Taoiseach acknowledged that the court's decision took the Government by surprise but said the constitutionality of the 1935 legislation had never been questioned before 2002.
"We didn't see it coming. We did not know what the Supreme Court was going to do . . . We won the High Court case and we put all our efforts and arguments into the Supreme Court case, and the fact is we lost that. The 1935 Act has been applied successfully for 70 years. No one ever challenged its constitutionality until November 2002. There have been many convictions obtained under the 1935 Act during that long period," the Taoiseach said.
He said the Attorney General's lack of warning had made no difference to the events of the past 10 days and praised the work of the Attorney General's Office.
"I think they probably believed that because they'd won it in the High Court and because it hadn't been contested for 70 years, and because there had been so many reviews of this issue, I think there was probably a certain amount of comfort that we'd win. It wasn't that all the people involved in it weren't working hard on it. They were," he said.
Acknowledging that more people convicted of statutory rape could walk free if the Government loses today in the Supreme Court, Mr Ahern said he would fight to ensure they did not remain unpunished.
"We will look at other options and there are options for the DPP to bring charges against these people. That's a matter for the DPP. He's an independent law officer, but I'm not going to sit around and let these people walk free without a fight. We'll fight it legally every way we can," he said.