Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I am not clear as to why use of the provision appeared to dry up. It may be that a more serious view was taken in respect of offences of this type and that an effort was made to deal with them on an indictable, rather than a summary, basis. Perhaps that is what happened. However, I cannot say much more because I am not privy to the prosecuting policies that are adopted in respect of these matters.

I took on board Deputy Rabbitte's statement on Friday that this deficiency should be met on an urgent and agreed basis. It is not a stroke on my part to take the Fine Gael point of view. I did not want a situation where the House would become involved in parallel debates, on the one hand, in respect of grooming and, on the other, soliciting, and where there would not be a meeting of minds as a result. It occurred to me that if I examined Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's Bill and came to the opinion that it was good, I should not then decide that we would deal with its subject matter on another day because of the need to deal with this issue now. I thought I would create a division within the House by deciding that the Deputy's priorities would not be mine or vice versa. I am trying to be reasonable in respect of how I am dealing with this matter.

Deputy Jim O'Keeffe very reasonably complained that I did not tip him off regarding the use of his Bill. I thought the first action I should take was to obtain the views of my colleagues in Government and I did so this morning. The draft version of the Bill before us was only circulated to them before today's Cabinet meeting.

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