Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The supplementary information I have on foot of the questions tabled relates generally to the Sullivan report rather than the present legal status of statutory rape laws as a result of the CC case. I would have to check whether any lessons are to be learned or reviews drawn up to further amend the law, or perhaps a question should be tabled to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

The Director of Public Prosecutions has stated that quantifying comparative numbers of prosecutions for sexual offences involving children in the years before and after the CC v. Ireland case in 2006 may give a misleading picture due to the unusual circumstances surrounding the loss of section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935 as an option.

Cases which were pending when CC v. Ireland was decided were examined. Where other charges were appropriate, they were brought. In a small number of cases, no other charges were appropriate and in some cases injured parties no longer wished to proceed.

Substitution of sexual assault on other charges for section 1(1) charges muddies the waters from a statistical perspective in the years both before and after the finding of unconstitutionality. Further complications arise in that the Director of Public Prosecution's files are assigned on the basis of the year in which they are received in that office. Such files may relate to offences which took place months, years or decades previously. They may not reach the courts for months and years afterwards. This creates further difficulties from a statistical standpoint if what is sought is a year-by-year comparative analysis.

Accordingly, the Director of Public Prosecutions cannot definitively say that he is prosecuting either more or fewer child rapes than he was previously. There is a comparison between unlawful carnal knowledge and defilement, appropriate as the new offence under the 2006 Act is broader in its scope than the old section 1(1) of the 1935 Act.

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