Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for coming before the House today and on Wednesday. It showed respect for the House, particularly when he was surrounded by foes within and outside the Chamber. The result of the court case has taken much of the steam out of this event and we have been allowed to philosophise generally. Perhaps this leads to a better debate.

We sought to distance ourselves from the earlier Supreme Court judgment. I never comment on court cases. How can we do so when we do not make the judgments therein? We cannot be jollying along on this afternoon's outcome but we are pleased with it.

When the Minister referred to the 1935 Act and the 1937 Constitution, I thought about how vastly different Ireland was then, with its mores not expressed. The Bill served the State well for 70 years, a point that has not arisen in the commentaries on it. It is difficult to legislate to provide for the punishment of the guilty while safeguarding the rights of the innocent. It is extremely difficult to achieve this balance. That is why justice is always depicted holding a scales. It is a difficult feat to envisage and pass legislation.

For this reason, there was much commotion in the past week. The commotion is due to the fact that we are using words that people do not want to use in an everyday sense. They shy away from terms such as "carnal knowledge", "intercourse", "sexual perversion" and others. Instinctively, people do not want to engage in using these words. That arises from the belief that Ireland is always a sunny place where nothing wrong ever happens. Backbenchers and spokespersons took fright at the events of the past week. The first reason for this was that there was such commotion about the matter. They also genuinely feared for their children's welfare in view of the black and white pictures that were painted.

There never was an innocent Ireland, but there was a hidden Ireland. The country was portrayed as innocent when it was really dark. As we engage in debates of this kind, words that are unusual for many people, such as "sexual predator" and "under age sex", have become more commonplace.

Backbenchers and members of political parties take fright, and I often feel that the great commotion surrounding such issues has its origins in the abortion referenda of the early 1980s, when there was such division in Irish society and the person at every door had a different take on what was happening. That lingered in people's minds, and the need for legislation on sexual issues sends frissons that would excite anyone. It leaves one very vulnerable, since each voter has something different to say. However, that does not mean we cannot grasp the issues. We must do so, since we are paid to legislate. We must grasp very difficult issues, including this one.

I was delighted when the Minister said at the beginning of the debate that he would establish a joint committee. I was interested in SenatorTuffy's comments that the first task of the committee should be to determine whether there are any loopholes in the legislation and work on that while it is still fresh in our debating minds. If there are loopholes that we wish to plug, we should attend to them quickly through the joint committee. I hope that this week of great unease will not simply be brushed away. I wonder whether there are enough safeguards for children in the Constitution.