The Tánaiste has confirmed in the wake of the Tim Allen case that the Government intends to change the law to allow the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal against district court sentences which he believes to have been too lenient.
Currently the DPP can only appeal sentences passed in higher courts.
Ms Harney told reporters yesterday that such a change, to section 2 of the 1993 Criminal Justice Act, had been promised in last year's Programme for Government and the Government was committed to it.
Allen (52) was ordered at Midleton District Court last Thursday to carry out 240 hours of community service. He agreed to make an €40,000 donation to a charity working with street children in Calcutta.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, has called for mandatory jail sentences for people convicted of using child pornography, warning that the public may see the sentence on Allen as too lenient.
Mr Kenny yesterday said there was now a danger that people will believe there is "one law for the rich and one for the poor".
He said this "vile" crime should be dealt with in the circuit court which can impose higher sentences than the district court which tried the Allen case.
However the Government remains unconvinced of the case for mandatory sentences. A 1998 Department of Justice discussion document argued against such a move on a number of grounds.
Mr Kenny told The Irish Times that the fact that the sentence had been passed after a "poor-box donation . . . could lead people to say that the judiciary are in collusion with lenient sentencing. There could be a perception that he got that sentence because he had the means to do that [make a substantial donation\]."
He said that the crime involved was one against children the effects of which would last their entire lives. Sentencing policy should be reviewed.
"I would much prefer if these cases were dealt with by the Circuit Court as a minimum court and that they would carry a minimum jail sentence."
The Department of Justice remains unconvinced of the benefits of mandatory sentencing in sex offence cases and is planning no specific review in the wake of last week's case, according to a Department spokesman.
Ireland does not have mandatory sentences for sex offences and the spokesman said there was no plan to change this.
He said that Irish courts had sentences available to them which were "among the toughest in the world" and it was up to them to decide how to apply them.
Eight sexual offences including rape and aggravated sexual assault can attract sentences up to life imprisonment.
A 1998 Department of Justice discussion paper on sexual offences argued against mandatory sentencing in such cases. It noted that there could be exceptional cases that would not be catered for in a mandatory sentencing regime.
It said experience in the US had suggested that mandatory sentences might make it more difficult to obtain convictions and also indicated that they had no effect on rates of serious sexual crime. Defendants might be less likely to plead guilty.
"Another consideration is that in the case of offences where the circumstances of the offence could vary widely, mandatory sentences could fall foul of the constitutional requirement of proportionality", it says.
There are few mandatory sentences in Irish law. Murder carries a mandatory life sentence and capital murder - the murder of a garda - carries a mandatory 40-year sentence, following the referendum which ended the possibility of the use of the death penalty.
The Criminal Justice Act 1999 introduced mandatory prison sentences for people found guilty of possessing drugs with a street value of £10,000 or more.