@Ryan Carroll: It can’t be consensual sex ‘just below the age of consent’. Isn’t that the point?

@Ryan Carroll: So you’re saying that sex with a child who’s “just below” the age of consent is OK then? How far under the age of consent is a good cut off point? Do you always choose to obey your own interpretation of the law?

@Ryan Carroll: So, you’re saying it’s not rape if it’s only a little bit underage? Or is it only a little bit of rape..? Or does it get bigger for each year below the age of consent. You confuse me.
You do understand the notion of *consent* I hope? It’s either there or it’s not.

@Ryan Carroll: so that makes it rape.

@Malachi: Yes, it’s still a crime because you are not mature enough to consent.

But since there is a moral difference between sleeping with a 15/16 year old who is legally unable to consent but they do it willingly and it’s legal in many countries, and all out raping a 12 year old child. The law recognizes that moral difference and gives a 100 times harsher punishment for the latter, giving a possible life term because the latter also means the persons a pedophile which we know is not something you can “cure”, and that 66% re-offend. So there is a moral and legal difference between the two all be it that they are both illegal so it’s not really a like with like comparison of that guy to this guy. This guy is far worse.

@Dr Richard DeWitt: I personally don’t think someone who did not recognize the existence of the Irish state, is a closet Marxist who used to envy the soviet union, cuba and north korea, should be Tainiste but that’s up to the voters.

As for him defending murder and demanding cop killers even the provos had disowned be released from prison. that disqualified him from the job IMO but apparently he has constituents who disagree, and a lot of people born in the 90s from my generation who don’t remember the troubles don’t realize what he is.

@Dr Richard DeWitt: No Dr, I didn’t say that, don’t put words in my mouth I’m quite capable of speaking for myself.

@Ryan Carroll: if your explaining your losing..in this case your losing big .. your an apologist for kiddie fiddlers.

Correction just checked it’s up to 15 years for 15-17, 15 if you are in a position of power (teacher, coach etc) and life for anyone under 15.

@MaryLoonyMcDonald: No Mary I’m explaining the law as it stands…I didn’t apologize for anyone:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2006/act/15/enacted/en/html

Read It.

The law is split into two separate sections for two separate scenarios, and the reason is that one crime is worse than the other. Simple facts.

@Ryan Carroll: Fair, but it’s not ‘sleeping with a 15/16 year old’ and ‘raping a 12 year old child’.

Both are rape, no legal consent is given in either case. A moral distinction? Sure – but you’ve created a semantic distinction there that doesn’t exist.

@Dr Richard DeWitt: Norris’s position was fairly clear, and I reckon he still supports it. He wants to be able to champion pedastry between the ages of 12 and 17 as part of education, similar to the practice carried out in upper class boarding schools. His support for Nawi only enhanced the view that this was not just an academic discussion, but one he supported in practice.

@Ryan Carroll: haha how can you have consensual sex with someone who is below the age of consent?? Bizarre contradiction.

@Malachi: ah the auld moral relativism rears its ugly head in debate.

@Malachi: Incidentally when that 2006 law was going through there was a giant loophole in it nobody noticed and who pointed it out? Norris.

There was a defense of “honest mistake” put in but there was no requirement in the defense clause for it to be formed on a reasonable grounds. So for example, if a person is in a nightclub and it’s reasonable to assume people were 18 because Ids were cheked at the door a jury can consider that, but if they just claim, with no basis, that they looked older or something that could be disregarded. He spotted that and it was added in.

Yes both are rape. It’s not a semantic distinction at all, there is a big difference between sleeping with a 16 year old who used a fake passport to get into a night club and raping a child, that is so obvious to anyone with any common sense. You might let the first one walk if you were on a jury, depending on the circumstances, but you’d throw the book at the latter and never want them to see the outside of a cell again. If it was a semantic distinction the law would not be split in two for two scenarios, it would have the same penalty for anything with anyone under 17.

@Johnny Gunn: Actual consent, not legal consent, there is a difference between the two.

@Martin Flood: the thing is.. Its his father, not him. He didn’t ask for the pardon..

@Dell: They’re talking about Norris and someones father here Dell, Adams asked for (and got) a commuted sentence for two cop killers who the GFA didn’t apply to, and the provos had disowned, and another SF TD was all smiles and hugs with them as they got out of prison. Adams got re-elected, so did Ferris, for getting cop killers out of jail.

@Ryan Carroll: but normal people would not tolerate Adams in a position of power (apart from up in the basket case statelet, where they are forced to). Benedictsson was forced out by the other party, not his own, for not condemning his father. In SF, it’s actually a virtue to have something abhorrent in your cupboard, and will never be thrown out internally. If Adams was in a normal coalition party and anyone of the transgressions he supported over the years came out, it would be brought down immediately.

@Martin Flood: it took months to get rid of a corrupt garda commissioner….you can see where the apathy and mistrust in this country comes from…

@Malachi: Ah cop on. Lots of teenagers under the age of consent have consensual sex.

@liam: no he shouldn’t have to. He has absolutely no control over what his father does and doesn’t condone his actions/views.

By your logic if anyone in your family has a criminal conviction you would have to notify your employer or else lose your job or both.

@Theunpopularpopulist: exactly. It makes no sense that the PM is being held responsible and I don’t blame him for not wanting to share details like that which he had no control over.

@Theunpopularpopulist: That is not what caused it. I understand that there is a lot of context to the situation and this article doesn’t touch on it properly, so I’ll try to explain it a bit.

Basically, the problem lies in that the identity of the man who made the letter had been kept a secret by the ministry of justice for a while without any legal reason. That is to say, they kept it confidential even when there is no law saying they are supposed to. The ministry of justice kept this up until an oversight went over the whole thing and concluded that, yes, they were going way beyond the law to keep the information from the public, at this point they caved and revealed it to be Bjarni’s father.
Now, it being his father wasn’t too much of a problem, though the connection does hurt him a bit, but then the minister of justice revealed that she had in fact told Bjarni the information all the way back in July. That along with the facts that it was Benedik his father AND that the minister of justice is also in the Independance Party paints thia whole thing as an atempt to make Bjarni look less bad by keeping the information from public eye
Added to this is the fact that the Bright Future didn’t really have the best relations with the Independence Party to begin with. But was the only party that managed to form a coalation with them during the months after the snap election of trying to form a government, as the Independence party wouldn’t partner with the Progressive party after the scandal and it and the Restoration party (accidentally misnamed as tge Independence party in the article, though it is basically an offshot of the IP). After they partnered with them they have really gotten the worst of the trade and have been kinda left out of the whole thing, not really helping withbthe trust. Now they find out that Bjarni and a part of the government (of which they are apart of) had hid from them this information and it became the straw that broke the camels back (in their own words), and they therefore quit the coalition based on what they called a serious breach of trust.
Now Bjarni isn’t really in any legal trouble for hidding his fathers involvement (though this added to his involvement in the Panama scandal cannot be good for his public image) and there isn’t anything blaming him in a way that he has to pay for, being still the head of his party and a member of parliament (so he isn’t really “responsible for the sins of his father”). But with BF having left the coalition the government no longer has its majority (of one seat) and is now in minority. This makes it automatically defunct and it is therefore collapsed.

Now we are here, seeing what happens next with this situation we have on our hands.

@Þórir Pétur Pétursson: Thanks for the explanation. Good luck.

@Johnny Gunn: more comments deleted!! The struggle is real bro. How do you overcome such hardship?

@Theunpopularpopulist: I’m not a believer but I remember this from religion class “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Sad but I think it happens that you might not lose your job but your career might go belly up for some “ unknown” reason. Life is not actually fair at all.

@DaisyChainsaw: But surely the kids parents are in someway to blame for putting them in danger in the first place. That’s the argument. (I doubt even this lot would blame the kid although they’re so twisted they actually might).

@Ryan Carroll: it’s not a condition that can’t be cured..its just criminal. Your an apologist for these criminal child abusers.