The European court ruling that the beating or caning of a child by a parent is a breach of human rights is being studied by the Government to assess if new legislation needs to be introduced.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg decided that the caning of a nine-year-old boy by his stepfather was severe enough to breach the Human Rights Convention that "no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment".
The boy had brought the challenge to the British law allowing parents to use "reasonable chastisement" which was employed successfully as a defence in a court case against his stepfather in Britain.
The judgment refers to severe punishment, and officials at the Human Rights Court emphasised that it concerned the individual case. The Irish Government will be looking at how the judgment relates to more moderate forms of punishment.
Yesterday a Department of Justice spokesman said: "The common law situation here is that a parent has the right to inflict `moderate and reasonable' physical punishment on a child. We will have to see what the judgment says in relation to that to see what changes, if any, need to be made."
Generally speaking, he said, European court decisions of this nature were binding, but the judgments were very detailed and this one would have to be studied to see if there were implications here.
The Children's Act, 1908, provides that it is the right of a parent or anybody having lawful control of a child, and teachers, to administer reasonable punishment to the child. In 1997 the Fatal Offences Against the Person Act abolished the right for teachers.
The prospect of legislation to prevent parents chastising children brought a mixed reaction yesterday, with opposition particularly from parents who said they would be against any new laws to control how they rear their children.
Barnardos, the child-care organisation, while against any form of physical punishment, also expressed concern at the introduction of any new law, advocating instead the education of parents. However, the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) unequivocally welcomed the ruling.
A spokesman for the National Parents Council, Mr John Whyte, said: "It's a sad day if we have to depend on legislation to rear our children."
Mr Whyte, who has 14 children, said he was aware the court ruling referred to an assault, but there should be some other way of dealing with it. To bring in legislation to control how parents reared their children was ridiculous.
The chief executive of the ISPCC, Mr Cian O Tighearnaigh, welcomed the ruling. At the moment the Irish common law provision meant that any parents or any person in loco parentis could hit anyone under 17 years, claim reasonable chastisement and not be subject to an assault charge, he said.
The chief executive of Barnardos, Mr Owen Keenan, said the court ruling was important in terms of drawing attention to the issues.
"We in Barnardos are totally opposed to children being beaten, smacked or slapped, but at the same time we have concerns that legislation could put even greater pressures on parents," he said.
Bans on all corporal punishment of children have been introduced in Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Norway and Sweden. The UK government introduced a Human Rights Bill last year. If it passes through parliament in October it will incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law and require UK courts to respect judgments of the European court, including yesterday's ruling.