Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I wish to turn to the merits of the Bill. It is an important item of legislation into which the Government collectively has put much work. The advice of the Minister and the Attorney General has been gathered in connection with it. It restates the basic position set out in the 1935 Act but in a way that protects both boys and girls. The Government examined the option of a minimal Bill which would simply restate the existing 1935 provision in terms of girls only. However, if we were to go down the route advocated by the Labour Party, we would not be protecting young boys in equal measure against sexual predators. The thinking that existed in 1935 was characterised by a former Chief Justice who said that the purpose of the Act was not alone to protect young girls from boys but to protect them against themselves. That is not the contemporary thinking, however, on the protection of young persons from child sexual abuse.

Reference was made to the Ombudsman for Children but in fact the first and most fundamental recommendation she made to the Government was that we should not discriminate in relation to whom we protect. She welcomed the extension of protection to both genders.

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