Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

——less grave sexual assault-type offence. At the point of solicitation, unless some remarkably clear language is used, one must be in a position to include sexual assault in it as well because otherwise it is extremely difficult to prove that it is for that purpose.

Another point that will arise later on the Labour Party's amendments, is that this is gender neutral. That was one of the reasons it occurred to me last weekend that it was not simply a matter of looking to defilement of girls or whatever with which we were concerned which was the offence to which the solicitation offence originally applied, but that young boys, especially in the context that we were dealing with last week, had to be comprehended in exactly the same way by whatever legislation we put in place.

The one point I want to emphasise is that if we do not make it indictable — I think there is a consensus that we should——

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