Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Presumably that was with their peers, for example, if they were aged 16, with other 16 year olds. Under what I understand the Government will come forward with today, it is providing for them to be sent to jail for five years and if a 16 year old girl gets pregnant by another 16 year old, which should not happen, she is liable to be sent to jail for five years. The Government cannot simply repeat in 2006 legislation which was for conditions of 1935 and the Government needs an immediate dialogue with young people and with their parents so an entire section of young, whose mores are different from those of 1935, are not criminalised willy-nilly by legislation now being repeated. That is in no way to dilute the urgency of protecting children and young people from predatory adults.

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