Ms Niamh McCormack:

I will just come in there as well. For good reason, a lot of the conversation at the moment has been dealing with very specific types of crime. For serious crimes like manslaughter, rape and murder, the criminal age of responsibility can go as low as ten years old, which is incredibly shocking because, before the enactment of the current Act, the age of criminal responsibility was 14, as it was assumed under law that from seven years up to 14 years, one would not have capacity to develop criminal intent. The special rapporteur on child protection issued a report in which he was incredibly scathing – rightly so – and described this as being illogical in that if a child as young as ten years' old was committing rape or murder, it was clearly indicative of a child welfare issue. While it is uncomfortable to acknowledge this, the State does have a duty to protect children, even those who cause harm.

If what we are looking to do is to reduce that harm being caused, we really need to ask ourselves whether having an age of criminal responsibility below 14 years would benefit anyone.