Controversial new proposals to lower the age of consent to from 17 years to 16 years, are set to be published by the Government in the New Year, Minister for Children Barry Andrews has said.

According to a report in the Irish Times, Mr Andrews said yesterday the current laws on age of consent were inappropriate and out of touch with the modern reality of sexual relations between young people.

However, according to research by the ESRI the current average age for first sexual intercourse is 17.

Similar proposals were mooted in early 2007, but a Sunday Tribune opinion poll found that a massive 68 per cent of people were opposed to the idea. In addition, the Rape Crisis Centre, the Catholic Bishops and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny voiced their opposition to the proposal.

Mr Kenny said at the time that the proposal sent the wrong message to children, while the bishops said that the proposal risked reducing sexual activity to something trivial. They expressed “amazement” that politicians had not confronted the basic demands of morality, “namely right and wrong”.

Then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern welcomed the Bishops’ statement, and leading Cabinet figures, including then education minister, Mary Hanafin, and current Taoiseach and then Finance Minister Brian Cowen, were understood to be opposed to the proposals.

Mr Andrews said heads of a Bill would be published soon probably in January to implement the conclusion of the Oireachtas committee on the constitutional amendment of children that the age of consent should be lowered to 16 years.

People had to acknowledge “times had moved on” and there was a different attitude to sex among young people. Mr Andrews denied that lowering the age of consent would encourage people to have sex at a younger age. He called for more sex education in schools.

“I don’t think young people are ignorant, they understand that we are not setting this as a target. We are clearly saying that delaying first sex is something that everyone recommends. Those people who have sex at young ages often regret it in later life.”

Currently the average age for first sexual intercourse is 17, and a campaign launched last year by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency (CPA) highlighted this fact,

The campaign, called b4udecide, pointed out that nearly a third of teenage girls have come under pressure to have sex before they are ready.

Research by Prof Hannah McGee of the Royal College of Surgeons has shown that young people who had sex at an early age were also more likely to express regret and to say that they wished they waited longer.

However, Prof McGee noted that myths of early sexual experience abounded. In fact, the majority of Irish young people wait until they are 17 or over to have sex. Less than one-third of young adult men (18-24 year olds) and 22 per cent of young women say they had sex before the age of 17.

Meanwhile, a recent study of young people in the UK conducted by researchers at Hull University showed that most teenagers want to learn about responsible parenting rather than sexual mechanics in sex education.

Mr Andrews said the Bill would also modernise incest laws by introducing a maximum life sentence for women who commit incest.

Men already face a possible life sentence if convicted of committing incest but for now there is a maximum sentence of seven years for women, a point highlighted by the judge in the recent trial of a mother of six, who was found guilty of incest in the Roscommon child abuse case.

He said the Government would probably not have time to pass the legislation into law but he appealed to the Labour Party, if it entered a coalition with Fine Gael, to continue to support the 16-year-old age of consent.

During discussions at the Oireachtas committee, which was chaired by Mary O’Rourke, Fine Gael supported maintaining the current age of consent at 17 years, while Labour supported 16 years.