David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister back to the House. I commended him for bringing forward the Bill on Second Stage as it is long overdue. It is a complex issue that throws up many problems that are difficult to resolve through legislation. That is a problem the Minister faced when framing this Bill. This is one of those issues, but I have purposely not tabled any amendments because I will use the opportunity afforded me to speak on the sections and tease out some of my concerns. Members have an opportunity on Report Stage and in the Dáil to table amendments.

I support Senator van Turnhout's amendment, but this issue could be resolved if we reduced the age of consent to 16, which is something I would like to see happen. It is interesting that peer-related consensual sexual activities between two teenagers aged 16 is illegal in this State. It should not be a criminal offence for two teenagers of that age to engage in sexual activities, whatever one's view might be on it. They should not be ostensibly criminalised for that practice. The Ombudsman for Children dealt with this in a mature way in her report, and I would like to quote her. The report states:

Sexual relations at such a young age are undesirable and to be discouraged, [which I would support] but this office does not believe that this is best effected through the criminal law. Indeed criminalising such relations may make it harder to deal with other consequences of such relations, for example, in accessing health services.

Senator van Turnhout gave a number of examples of that. If a pregnant 16 year old presents to a GP, must the GP presume that a crime has been committed? The situation throws up these anomalies and the way to resolve many of my concerns in this area would be to reduce the age of consent.

The Ombudsman for Children advocated that section 4 of the withholding information Bill be removed. She states the following:

It should be clarified that professionals working with children under the age of consent who have engaged in non-abusive sexual relations should not necessarily have to report such incidents as instances of child abuse to the relevant statutory authorities. It is important that medical professionals in particular have clarity on this issue and are supported in providing their services to young people in a manner that is consistent with their best interests. However, if the professionals in question have any concerns regarding risk factors that are apparent or suspect that there may be an abusive element in the case under consideration, the matter clearly can be referred in the usual way.

There are issues here that need to be clarified. I would welcome a response from the Minister. We purposely did not table any amendments on this Stage because we will tease out our concerns during discussions on the section, and reserve the right to table amendments on a later Stage.

I support the sentiments behind the amendment tabled by Senator van Turnhout. We recognise the issue is complex and it is difficult to deal with many of the issues. I will present many more scenarios on a later Stage on issues such as defence. We accept this is a difficult way to deal with the matter through legislation. We commend the Minister on what he has done and the efforts that have been made but we have concerns about the sentiment behind the amendment, which we support.