Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I wish to share time with my colleagues, Deputies Howlin and Penrose. I congratulate Fine Gael on introducing this Bill. I am delighted the Minister of State with responsibility for children is present because I have some questions for him.

I heard the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform speak at some length about the development of a statutory sentencing policy. Following today's events, could the Minister of State, or his senior colleague, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform when he is next in the Chamber, please explain to me and to other parents how a man who raped a 12 year old child, having plied her with drink, ended up with a sentence of three years for statutory rape? I have heard this question repeatedly today. I am not a lawyer but we have been told by the Taoiseach that such offences carry substantial sentences up to life imprisonment.

I want to bring to the attention of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform an article by Mr. Kieron Wood, a well known legal journalist, commenting on the issues in one of the weekend papers. The article includes quotes from an interview which the Minister gave to Pat Kenny to a few days ago on RTE. He expressed the view that no appalling vista arose from the Supreme Court judgment.

The Minister made some very strange statements which, if they accurately reflect what he is reported in the newspapers as having said, should be explained by him to interested parents. He said:

We must also ask ourselves if we have to protect 15 year olds from randy 23 year olds, if I can use that phrase. It is not an easy one to legislate for on the back of a beer mat.

The Minister said his view was that the notion that 16 year olds could be criminalised and theoretically face prison and so on for having sexual intercourse was no longer sustainable in this day and age.

The quotes are from a long interview. They are attributed to the Minister and I do not know if they are correct. However, I do not understand the following. The Supreme Court delivered a judgment the other day which changed the law as people understood it. The Labour Party has offered a temporary measure to plug the gap. As the Minister said in the interview that this is a complex issue. He said that if one is talking of a 24 year old man and a 12 year old girl or whatever, especially if there is a question of them being related, that is not a runner, if one can imagine.

There is a very clear division between the Government parties on this issue. The remarks attributed to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform are from what I think is called in American jurisprudence a libertarian point of view. The Minister is an esteemed lawyer, but if that is the Progressive Democrats libertarian view, what is the Fianna Fáil view with regard to the protection of children and the very difficult issue of seeking to protect children, because young teenagers are still children? We know some 13 year olds can be quite advanced but most of them cannot safely undertake sexual adventures and emerge the better for them.

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