Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is a difference between the position we are taking and the position the Minister is taking. When we have asked the Minister to do certain things in this Bill, his default position has always been that such things do not have a place in the Bill on the basis that someone somewhere will do something about it sometime. It is good enough for a legislator to take such an approach. These very important issues are of real concern to parents throughout the country. If we think about it, this shows us how far we have travelled in this country and how far out of step with most European countries we will be. Before the referendum, everybody wanted to talk about what is happening in the rest of the world. We are trying to introduce protections that are similar to those that exist in the rest of the western democracies, but we are being told we have to do this our own way. The key element of this is that the consent issue does not exist in primary legislation.

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