Political reaction: The Supreme Court's explanation of its decision to send a man accused of raping a 12-year-old girl back to jail showed that it was not prepared to see him free under any circumstances, Labour TD Brendan Howlin said.
Pointing out that it is breaking new legal ground to keep a man in jail for an offence that no longer exists, Mr Howlin said judges clearly understood the degree of public anger surrounding the case.
"Some of the phrases used in the Chief Justice's judgment about the workings of the courts in a society showed that they understood that [ his release] could not be allowed to happen," said Labour's justice spokesman.
However, the Attorney General must now talk to the Director of Public Prosecutions and report back on how the DPP will prosecute 54 men charged under the now-useless 1935 legislation, he said.
"We will have to demand an explanation. The AG is the figure who has a constitutional right to talk to the DPP and report back," he said.
The decision of the State's top court to issue five separate judgments illustrates the complexities of the case before them, and its "enormous legal and constitutional significance".
Emphasising that the judgment will require careful and detailed consideration, Mr Howlin said it appeared it would "not lead to a general release" for those jailed for unlawful carnal knowledge.
"There will be a widespread welcome for this. However, until the judgments have been considered in detail it is not possible to say if they will have any impact on individual cases where people have already been sentenced.
"Nor indeed is it clear at this stage what impact the judgments will have on cases of the 54 people currently facing charges before the courts under the 1935 Act," he said.
However, the Government's "hastily written and poorly drafted Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act, 2006, rushed through the Oireachtas in a single day" was a "seriously flawed and totally inadequate response".
The cross-party Oireachtas committee on child protection will begin work next week on an examination of all of the State's laws in the area, under the chairmanship of Fianna Fáil Limerick East TD Peter Power.
The committee has until November to complete its work.
Unusually, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell, and Minister of State for Children Brian Lenihan will sit on the committee.
Urging the committee to carry out its work quickly, Mr Howlin said it was important that proper legislation was brought before the Oireachtas that would provide the greatest possible protection for children.
Rejecting the Government's argument that the Supreme Court's ruling vindicated its handling of events, Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said the Government's "inadequate" performance had thrown the State into "turmoil".
Fine Gael Senator Brian Hayes said the crisis caused by the original rulings in the CC and A cases "could happen again thanks to the Government's fluffed response".
"I am very, very concerned that the Government's inept and belated response could allow a similar situation to re-occur. The Supreme Court's statements highlight how badly the Government handled the Mr A case.
"The court could have made it clear in the first instance that its initial ruling concerning unlawful carnal knowledge would not be applied retrospectively. When it failed to do so, the Government should immediately have attempted to get the issue clarified. Instead, the Government wasted valuable time," said Mr Hayes.
"When it did eventually take action the response was ill-judged and ill-thought out," he said, though the Sullivan inquiry into blunders in the Attorney General office did not go far enough. "The Government should have used this crisis to put in place early warning systems to ensure that we never again face the prospect of sexual offenders being released early from jail."