Pressure mounts on McDowell over rape-law ruling

Pressure was tonight mounting on under-fire Minister for Justice Michael McDowell over his failure to amend the State’s rape laws, which allowed a paedophile to walk free from court and could see up to eight others released.

Opposition leaders rounded on the minister, questioning his integrity and demanding victims and their families be given the protection of the law, rather than their attackers.

Enda Kenny, Fine Gael leader, said the minister’s competence and integrity was now in doubt.

“Since the Supreme Court decision, the minister has been flailing around with half-truths and dishonest claims,” the Mayo TD said.

But Pat Rabbitte, Labour Party leader, went further: “In virtually any other democracy a minister who presided over such a mess would have by now been out of office.

“Unfortunately, this Government clearly believes that political accountability by ministers for the actions or their failures is a principle that should apply only to other administrations.”

Mr Kenny claimed Mr McDowell should have known about failings in the Criminal Law Act 1935, which was declared unconstitutional last week by the Supreme Court.

The challenge to Section 1.1 of the legislation was taken by a 23-year-old man seeking to stop a prosecution for having sex with a teenage girl when he was 17. He claimed the girl told him she was 16.

The case was reported in The Law Society Gazette last October and in a national newspaper last July, but Mr McDowell claimed he first heard of it through the media.

The embattled minister suggested it would not require an instant amendment because there was no gaping black hole in the legislation insisting serious law should not be rushed.

But the Government has since taken a different view and agreed to reconvene the Dáil during next week’s holiday to debate emergency legislation.

In a bid to distance himself from the controversy, McDowell said neither he, nor the Attorney General Rory Brady were personally aware of the case. He claimed the DPP had taken charge of it.

But in the Dáil Tánaiste Mary Harney, Mr McDowell’s Progressive Democrat party leader, claimed the case had been handled jointly by the DPP and the Attorney General.

Mr Rabbitte asked if Mr McDowell was deliberately misleading the public to save his Cabinet seat.

“Can it be that the Minister for Justice was misinformed on such fundamental points, or is it the case that he deliberately set out to mislead the public in an effort to divert attention away from his own spectacular failings?

“Whatever the explanation is for the direct conflict between the details given by the minister and offered by the Tánaiste, serious questions now arise as to the competence and honesty of the Minister for Justice.”

Detailing a string of instances, Mr Kenny said the Government had no answers to critical questions about the fall-out from the Supreme Court ruling.

“What greater risk could there be than a critical piece of law being found unconstitutional with the resultant release onto our streets of self-confessed rapists of young children?”

Ciarán Cuffe, Green Party Justice spokesman, said: “The minister must also clarify what information he had in his possession on this legal challenge and when he acquired it.”