The Labour Party has accused Minister for Justice Michael McDowell of "making up" his response to the crisis caused by the Supreme Court's ruling on the statutory rape laws "hour by hour".
The Labour Party's justice spokesman, Brendan Howlin, had a meeting with Mr McDowell yesterday over a new draft Bill designed to close the loophole opened up by the Supreme Court ruling.
Details of the new Bill are due to be circulate to TDs this afternoon.
Brendan Howlin:
But Mr Howlin claimed this morning that despite discussions with Mr McDowell, he was still unsure how this draft will be worded.
"I don't know whether what is proposed is a short term sunset bill to plug the gap that the whole nation wants plugged to ensure that we have a clear law against statutory rape in this country or whether it is an overarching bill which will seek to do much more," he told RTÉ's Morning Irelandtoday.
"This is a Government, an administration and a Minister that is making it up hour by hour," he claimed.
"If it is simply to plug the gap we have no difficulty with that, we have a consensus to do that in an hour today. Restore the law to protect our children . . . we can do that now. If he wants to do much more then we will regret rushing it."
Mr Howlin was sceptical about Mr McDowell's assertion that he did not know of last week's Supreme Court case in advance.
"I can't imagine any line Minister being unaware of a major assault on a fundamental law under his remit. I suppose I have to accept the man's word for it. It would seem amazing that he wasn't. He certainly should have been."
The Government insisted last night that neither Mr McDowell nor the Attorney General, Rory Brady, knew of the Supreme Court case in advance.
The 1935 law (Section 1.1 of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 1935) had made it an automatic offence for a man to have sex with a girl under 15 years of age. The Supreme Court declared a case brought by CC as unconstitutional on a number of grounds.
The man convicted was 18 when the admitted intercourse occurred and claimed it was consensual and that the girl told him she was older. The Supreme Court's
grounds for overturning the decision included that, in cases of consensual intercourse, Section 1.1 did not allow for a defence of genuine belief that the victim was older.