Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister and his officials to the House. I welcome this Bill, just as my party did in the other House last night. Fine Gael has been very strong in its support for measures relating to child protection. It supports the zone of absolute protection and retaining the current age of consent. We have called for a referendum on the important issues regarding child protection. The Minister will agree that we do not want that legislation to be rushed because we have found to our cost what happens when that is the case. With the best will in the world, human error can occur when something is rushed. When anomalies or loopholes are identified, we will all call for urgent legislation, but we must always be careful that, in expediting its passage, we do not make errors, afterwards reaching a position such as today's.

While I welcome that this is being dealt with swiftly, we must ensure when we make such important changes, especially regarding child protection, we examine it thoroughly. We should not cause further problems inadvertently, as happened in this case. I certainly welcome the Bill before us and feel that the additional measures the Minister is taking on board will provide us with legislation affording protection to children and providing a deterrent to those predatory adults, unfortunately at large in society, who prey on young children.

Unfortunately, this country has a very poor history in child protection. Many cases in which children were abused came to light only recently, having gone undetected for years. I am glad we now live in a more open society in which we are more aware of the situations in which children can find themselves and that we are able to bring them to light. Last week, we saw that success sometimes depends on the vigilance of parents, ensuring that they know what their children are doing and any danger in which they might be.

We legislators must ensure that laws are in place to protect children and that we can act speedily to deal with perpetrators. I will not be too critical regarding last year's events when the emergency legislation came to the House. I know that many criticisms were levelled at the Tánaiste last night owing to the delay during a week in which we threw abuse at one another across the Houses. That time might have been better spent in a serious examination of the legislation.