Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Questions have been asked about section 5. The Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General conferred on the Bill. The gist of the DPP's strong view was that it was all very well from the point of view of political correctness to have gender neutrality, but that if we did not make special provision for young females it would result in substantial ongoing injustice in that young female victims would feel they would be viewed as criminals and treated as an accomplice in criminal justice proceedings. Deputies Rabbitte, Kenny and others stated this amendment resulted from a Fianna Fáil committee meeting. That is wholly and completely untrue. This issue was thrashed out at great length. Deputy Joe Higgins first asked whether we would criminalise unmarried mothers for the first time in Irish history. Section 5 is in place to avoid that. If it were not for this section, young women who become pregnant could find themselves criminalised for having a child. It is not pretty to avoid that in legislation but if I introduced a totally gender neutral Bill, I would have ensured for the first time that a girl aged 15 or 16 who becomes pregnant would be a criminal as well as everything else.

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