The Department of Justice rejected advice from the Department of Health and child protection bodies in 1998 that the laws on statutory rape should be amended to allow for a defence of "reasonable mistake".
In the wake of the crisis last May when the Supreme Court struck down the statutory rape laws over the lack of such a defence, senior Government members suggested there had been no great interest in the past in having the laws on statutory rape changed.
However, documents released under the Freedom Of Information Act to The Irish Times reveal that in 1998 the Department of Health, the ISPCC, Cari, Temple Street children's hospital, the Rape Crisis Centre and the Mater Dei Counselling Centre, all identified the lack of the "reasonable mistake" defence as an issue that needed to be addressed with new laws.
The advice was given in submissions to the Department of Justice, which had sought opinions as part of a review of the law. It received 11 submissions which dealt with the issue of reasonable mistake, two of which have not been released for confidentiality reasons.
A department spokesman has defended the decision to reject the advice at the time and said the submissions were advocating change on "policy and not constitutional grounds".
He added that the department believed the introduction of such a defence would have weakened the statutory rape laws. "It was recognised in the department that introducing a defence of mistake as to age . . . would be contrary to that policy in that young girls could be subject to more rigorous questioning . . . during court cases."
The 1998 submissions show that the Department of Health advised that the defence should be introduced along the lines suggested by the Law Reform Commission, which had previously reported the lack of such a defence "was unduly harsh and wholly out of step with the law in other jurisdictions".
The ISPCC said: "Natural justice demands that a defence can be mounted where the accused genuinely believed that the child had attained the age of consent." However, it said the onus should be on the accused to produce "sustainable evidence".
St Clare's unit at Temple Street, which specialises in treating child abuse victims, said the law "does not operate as a prohibitor but instead increases the level of coercion required to ensure the offence is not reported".
The Rape Crisis Centre said it would have "no objection to some mitigation in this aspect of the law, but we would strongly recommend certain limitations".
The emergence of the submissions are in contrast to comments made by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in the Dáil last May. "The majority view of those who gave views on that paper was that no change should take place," he said of the 1998 submissions.
In June, Minister for Justice Michael Mr McDowell said in a written Dáil reply: "The issue of mistake as to age elicited no great interest from the public."