It is not a foregone conclusion that the age of consent will be lowered to 16, the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said today.
The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Child Protection recommended last month that the age at which teenagers can legally have sex be lowered from 17 to 16.
However the State's Catholic bishops yesterday expressed their alarm at the proposals and said they sent out the wrong message to parents and children and would be morally wrong for society.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said today that the Government had not yet considered the issue and the committee's recommendations were not a foregone conclusion.
"It's not a foregone conclusion because we haven't discussed it yet. The Government will make a consideration on the round on all of these issues, not just on one issue," he told reporters during a constituency visit in Dundalk.
Speaking on RTÉ, Mr Ahern said: "I think the bishops' input is a good one and I hope that even more people put their views forward on the issue. We have to look at all of the issues around it. We have to protect our children and we also have to watch that we don't push our children into criminality. We will look at all aspects of this."
Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny today welcomed the stance taken by the bishops against the lowering of the age of consent.
Mr Kenny said that Fine Gael opposed proposals to lower the age of consent. "Since the Tanaiste Michael McDowell first proposed lowering the age of consent, I and my party have consistently opposed this move. I believe that it sends the wrong signal to our children and society about values and standards in modern Ireland," Mr Kenny said.
"I was deeply disappointed when the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Child Protection recently recommended lowering the age of consent. This decision, which Fine Gael opposed in the Committee, was based on a flawed argument. Yes, teenagers can physically have sex and they do. Just as they can physically down a bottle of vodka. But the fact that they do, does not make it right. Nor does it make it inevitable. Nor should we make it legal."
"I hope that we will now see a wider debate on this issue. That debate should be framed in terms of our values and must address how we support parents who refuse to accept early teenage sex as inevitable or acceptable and how we empower teenagers who want to resist peer pressure for sex," he added.
Meanwhile, the head of the Church of Ireland said although he disagrees with sexual activity among 16-year-olds, he does not want to see it criminalised.
Speaking on RTÉ today, Archbishop John Neill was responding to the statement by the Catholic Bishops of Ireland. "Morality enforced by law removes all element of moral choice," Dr Neill said. "We have to be somewhat realistic in making law. We encourage and teach moral decisions but I would hate to see us enforcing it by law.
"You can take this kind of thing to the extreme and put a law against adultery - you don't stop adultery, but you criminalise it. I fear the same could happen over sexual activity amongst 16 year olds which I don't wish to see but I do not want to see it criminalised," he said.
In their statement yesterday following their three-day winter meeting at Maynooth, the Catholic bishops said: "Children need to be protected not only from irresponsible adults but also from themselves, until they reach the age of maturity, now considered to be 18."
The Catholic bishops also expressed "deep concern at the lack of any reference to the moral issues involved" in the committee report.
"The question of child protection should not blind the public to the broader issues, such as the increase in teenage sexual activity and its consequences in terms of danger not only to their physical and psychological health, but also - and in particular - to their moral well being," they said.