Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I will repeat what I stated on Second Stage. We are working on a major piece of legislation relating to grooming. It is very difficult to create grooming offences and we must be extremely careful about the language used. Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's two proposals in his Private Members' Bill occurred to us as reasonable amendments which were safe, and he tip-toed around the unsafe aspects. That is no bad thing as they could cause us all to hesitate if we were to discuss enacting them this evening.

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