Opposition reaction: TDs and parties express dissatisfaction at the Government's handling of the controversy and their concern at the proposals for closing the loophole that led to the release of Mr A.
Fine Gael
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny called for a national debate on the role of families and the Government. "As a society, this is a conversation we must have. We could do with a radical reconsideration of what is acceptable and desirable behaviour by parents, children and the Government.
"Ultimately, it takes not just parents but society itself to rear a child. In a well-functioning society, there is no such thing as other people's children. All of them are ours, but we have lost touch with this view in the past 10 years. We must reconnect with it again."
He claimed that the Bill effectively raised the age of consent for boys to 17 years.
"The Minister's proposal to reduce the age of consent would effectively legalise sex between young teenagers who, in my view, are children. The mark of a civilised society is how we cherish our children and their childhoods. Not for one minute are we cherishing our children or the shrinking space of their childhoods by legalising sex between young teenagers.
"At that stage, they are physically able to have sex, which they do, just as they are physically able to drink a bottle of vodka, but they do not have the emotional or psychological maturity necessary to deal with the consequences of sex."
Mr Kenny said he did not just mean the obvious consequences of teenage pregnancy.
"Gonorrhoea, syphilis and chlamydia have increased by 900 per cent, 1,100 per cent and 1,500 per cent respectively. Rather, I mean the more subtle and sinister damage caused where sex is callous and commodified, relationships are transitory and our children are deprived of any sense of intimacy, tenderness, responsibility or innocence."
It was a reality that teenagers were having sex.
"However, that it is a fact does not make it right or inevitable, which is the message I want to send to the people. Legalising sex for that age group is wrong. Moreover, it is out of touch with the values and aspirations of the vast majority of parents who want to live up to their responsibilities to their children and to nurture, value, mind and protect them while they remain children.
"In matters of age and consent, we must remember that the law is not just a decider of guilt or innocence. It is a code for living that defines what we deem as acceptable in the standards and aspirations of our society. As a father, I speak for hundreds of thousands of parents who want to set higher goals for their children. They refuse to accept early teenage sex as inevitable, acceptable or, in some ways, prescribed.
"In a mediaised world, where promiscuity is increasingly promoted and sometimes celebrated, the vast majority of parents want to do what they can to bring their children up and give them the sanctuary of boundaries and the safety net of appropriate controls. The State should do likewise."
Mr Kenny claimed the Bill was a Fianna Fáil creation. "The last two weeks have exposed the shallowness at the core of the minister's politics. Get the retaliation in first, respond off the cuff, trash anyone who disagrees and sneer at anyone who challenges such a political and legal colossus."
Fine Gael justice spokesman Jim O'Keeffe claimed the only issue for the Minister for Justice was to defend his own reputation "or what was left of it". He criticised the "cow logic" of Minister for Finance Brian Cowen when the Government decided to focus its ire on the Supreme Court.
"That is dangerous talk. The Supreme Court and other courts of this country have a job to do under the Constitution. When the finger is pointed at those courts to share the blame for the Government's incompetence, one is in very dangerous territory. I warn the Government off it."
Labour Party
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte claimed the Bill was "not gender neutral" and could be unconstitutional. The Minister had quite properly exempted the young girl who became pregnant and a teenage mother from prosecution, which was only right.
"However, the young boy can serve five years in Mountjoy prison. No thought has been given to that. It is not gender neutral and if the Minister's original argument is right, for that reason it is suspect constitutionally."
He said that Government backbenchers regarded the Minister for Justice's response to the crisis as similar to "watching a car crash in slow motion".
"People could not understand why he could not grasp the import of what was occurring before his eyes. The Minister engaged in laid-back interviews and relaxed exchanges about what could or could not be done.
"He promised to bring forward a Bill in two weeks' time, not just after the holiday weekend but after the House was going into recess for a week. Then it was proposed that we would meet and if the Bill was ready we would enact it. The public were in disbelief."
Mr Rabbitte said Mr McDowell had found out this week what it was to be the meat in the sandwich, a reference by the Labour leader to the role of Minister for Finance Brian Cowen and Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O'Donoghue.
"When he found himself between Clara and Caherciveen, he soon found out who drives the Government."
Labour justice spokesman Brendan Howlin claimed the Government was putting children in the dock for acts which were not currently criminal but would be later in the evening.
"It is not illegal today, nor has it been in the history of the State, for a 16-year-old boy and girl to engage in consenting sexual acts other than intercourse. This is about to change. By this evening, it will be a serious criminal offence that might have these 16-year-olds facing five years in jail and being placed on the sexual offenders register. It is no use for the Minister to tell the house the DPP will not prosecute. As legislators we make law, we do not tell the prosecution authorities to ignore it."
Mr Howlin claimed a strong case could and would be made for the proposition that it was illegal to provide that an act which was lawful for a girl was unlawful for a boy. "Our advice is that this outright discrimination will fail the test of constitutionality and of compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights."
He added: "I apologise for being so explicit, but it is necessary.
"If two 16-year-olds engage in sexual intercourse, the boy is guilty of a serious offence while the girl is guilty of nothing. If the girl performs oral sex on the boy, they are both guilty of a serious offence. If the boy performs oral sex on the girl, then neither of them is guilty of any offence."
He said the emergency sitting marked the end of a bleak and depressing 10 days for the criminal justice system and for political leadership and authority.
"To claim that last week's Supreme Court decision came like a bolt from the blue is frankly unbelievable and unacceptable. We have walked similar paths before and were promised that systems had been put in place to ensure that a Brendan Smyth-type fiasco could not happen again. But it has happened." From the outset, the Government's response had been appalling.
Green Party
The Green Party called for a "sunset clause" to be included in the new legislation on statutory rape, so that it would lapse in two years. "Rushed law is not good law," said the party's justice spokesman Ciarán Cuffe. "We have an onus to revisit the Bill in two years' time" and "we should ensure that this legislation is revisited in less than two years".
Mr Cuffe also suggested "that we look compassionately at 15- and 16-year-olds who engage in sexual activity. There is a need for some kind of 'Romeo and Juliet' clause. Such a clause would put in place a very minor penalty for those aged 15 and 16 who engage in sexual activity with someone who is no more than two years older than them."
He expressed concerned about the inequality in the legislation whereby "we will criminalise boys but not girls".
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin's justice spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh said: "We must be sure that this is a first step, a temporary measure pending comprehensive and wide-ranging legislation." The victims "of Mr A who walked free and of others who may yet walk free have been devastated".
"The neglect of successive governments has created a situation where this legislation is being rushed through today."
Independents
Joe Higgins (Socialist, Dublin West) said: "The Government should not include in the same Bill a completely different provision on an entirely different issue which would make criminals of teenagers who have intimate sexual relations with each other by consent." Mr Higgins was the only TD to challenge a vote on the Bill, for this reason, but failed to get any support and the Bill passed all stages.
Paudge Connolly (Ind, Cavan-Monaghan) said it was the second time in 12 months that legislation had been seen to be flawed.
"The legislation has affected two of our most vulnerable groups in society, the young and the old. Worse still, in both cases it was known for a number of years that the legislation was flawed."
Catherine Murphy (Ind, Kildare North) said the correct approach to the issue would have been "to plug the gap and return with more thoughtful legislation. I regret that approach has not been taken."
Séamus Healy (Ind, Tipperary South) said he had "never witnessed such a display of arrogance dishonesty and double talk as I witnessed today from the Minister for Justice. He has refused to accept any responsibility for the appalling vista that has opened up or any regret for the horrifying shambles."