Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Perhaps it should be a crime and maybe we should look at that. However, whatever we do, I do not believe there is a basis for saying a 16 year old gay boy should be dealt with differently from a 16 year old heterosexual girl in the same circumstances. I do not see there is a huge difference between the two. If, as a Legislature, we say a girl is entitled to behave in a manner which would amount to gross indecency with a much older man, I do not see how we can say we should criminalise it just because there are two males involved. That is the only view inherent in the 2006 Act, namely, that it was a gender neutral Act in so far as we could make it one.

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