Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Subsection (1) of the proposed section 21 refers to a person who engages in a sexual act with a protected person knowing that that person is a protected person and subsection (2) refers to a person who invites, induces etc. a protected person knowing that that person is a protected person. The reason I raise this issue is that a case has finished in the courts where an unfortunate victim of a rape by a non-Irish national was a Down syndrome individual. If my reading is correct, the main plank of the defence, according to media reports, was that the individual who was convicted, rightly so, was not aware and did not know the concept of Down syndrome because he came from Pakistan or some small village or wherever else. It was the main plank of the defence, if my reading of it is correct.