Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

It has been suggested that warning signs that the law was unconstitutional were ignored. The Law Reform Commission never gave that warning. The law in question has been considered in its operation by every court in the land, right up to the Supreme Court, regularly and exhaustively. The X case is one of many examples of this. In the past ten years, there have been at least 25 cases where the law in question has been considered by the superior courts. It operated for 70 years. Many people have been jailed for many years on foot of this law. In 2004, as we now know, the High Court ruled that it was constitutional and, despite an appeal from that decision, the Director of Public Prosecutions continued to lay charges under it as late as 12 May of this year.

It is a black lie to suggest that the State should have realised that this law was dangerous or defective. It was effective and fair, and until this month it served the people well and stood the test of time and the test of extensive scrutiny.

It has also been suggested that legislation should have been introduced to amend it in the face of the challenge that was launched in 2002 and, if that had been done, we would not be in the position we are in today. In other words, a pessimistic assessment about the law's chance of survival should have caused the Government of the day to introduce a law to make it possible for perpetrators to cross-examine witnesses on the basis I have mentioned and with the adverse consequences I have mentioned, and that this should have been enacted just in case we lost the case in the Supreme Court. That is another example of the people being served up with a black lie.

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