Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pledged a speedy Government response to the Supreme Court judgment striking down the law making it an automatic crime to have sex with a girl under 15.
"This is an urgent and important matter and, in the absence of clear law, we must deal with it as speedily as possible," he told the Dáil yesterday.
"The Attorney General and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform have been working on that last night and this morning."
He said that the complexities and legal points were being examined, but they must take into account all aspects.
"There is no return to law that has been struck down and we must bring in new legislation."
He was replying to Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny who said that there were 54 cases of statutory rape in recent years, raising the possibility of convicted sex offenders applying to have their names removed from the sex offenders register, which was put in place to protect young people.
He added that the Government had fair warning of what happened, with the Law Reform Commission recommending a change in the legislation as far back as 1990.
"We live in an Ireland that is very different from the Ireland of 1935, when this legislation was enacted.
"This is a far more dangerous country for young people in a society where drinking among the young has reached epidemic proportions and civility is absent in many areas."
Mr Ahern said that the Department of Justice had published a discussion paper about the law on sexual offences in 1998, addressing matters such as the age of consent and the defence of mistake as to age.
"The majority view of those who gave views on that paper was that no change should take place. The discussion paper led directly to the drafting and enacting of the Sex Offenders Act. Other legislation dealing with sexual offences is at an advanced stage of preparation in the Department of Justice."
Mr Kenny said that his party would be more than willing to facilitate whatever action the Government deemed appropriate to respond to the court ruling.
"We are dancing at the crossroads here and people will pay the price. This is an arcane law that belongs in the last century. I agree that there is no return to it."
Mr Ahern said that, like many laws, this legislaton had been in place for three-quarters of a century. "Looking over the sections last night and this morning, I saw that it was framed for a very different society and age when people did not consider issues that we would all consider the norm today." They must look at what was said in 1990 and 1998, the Taoiseach added.
"It is interesting that, when people examined the issue eight years ago, not 75 years ago, they saw no requirement for change. I am not sure why that was so or whether it was felt that it opened up a broad range of other complex issues. I think that may have been the case."
