'If some pretty girl on the pensionable side of 16 offered me a bit of pelvic refreshment, why her knickers would be hanging off a tree in Mongolia before she could change her mind'

Why is this society apparently addicted to passing stupid laws that, if enforced, can only cause misery and wreck lives, and in no way add to the sum of human happiness or wisdom? The entirely predictable -- and predicted -- consequences of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2006 are now coming about. A 19-year-old boy, who had consensual sex with a girl who was just under 17, the lawful age of consent, is to be imprisoned.

Now, if you want to grasp the sheer magisterial folly of our law-makers, the preposterous law that was used against the boy was the Criminal Law Sexual Offences Act 2006, as amended by Section 5 (1) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences Act) 2007. In other words, they didn't even manage to get the law right back in 2006, and had to go back with their legislative spanners and screwdrivers a year later. And still they got it wrong.

But throughout, you could see these pathetic, fumbling, nervous idiots had their eye on what the feminist-lobby would say about them if their contemptible little law failed to make women the invar- iable victims of any sexual episode.

And lobby is the right word. Because you could fit this tiny but headline-making group of a few addled and bitter idiots into a broom cupboard: they no more represent women's opinions than Licensed Vintners Association represents Alcoholics Anonymous.

This is the world we are now living in. Among the under-25s, 31pc of men and 22pc of women had full sex before they were 17. The average age of first sexual contact (not full intercourse) is probably closer to 14. But according to the Sex Offences law passed, not under the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, but by the 21st century Dail Eireann (at two bites of the cherry, so to speak), any 16-year-old boy who has sex with 16-year-old girl is a criminal, but the girl isn't.

It was a bad law, bound to make a bad case sooner or later, and by God, that's what it has done. We have created a legal apartheid which sees consensual neo-adult females as "victims". Indeed, the press coverage of the Mullingar affair referred to her throughout as such.

What makes Mullingar really special is that it hinges upon the girl's parents' feelings about the boy in question.

He and their daughter had previously had sex. She agreed to have sex again (there's my girl). But her father had since met and disliked the boy.

So, suspecting something was -- so to speak -- afoot on the evening in question, he followed his daughter and found her, well, you know what, and called in An Garda Siochana.

What an admirable fellow!

The lad is now to get a custodial sentence, even though he thought -- and the judge accepted that he thought -- that the age of consent was 16.

Oh shag this age-of-consent mullarkey. For I was 19 once, and by Jesus, if some pretty girl on the pensionable side of 16 offered me a bit of pelvic refreshment, why her knickers would be hanging off a tree in Mongolia before she could change her mind. Moreover, any boy of 19 who says NO to such a girl deserves to rot in jail.

So only the weakest of legislators would indulge the cruel instincts of the few sad feminists who seek to wreak ruin on any boy simply because he surrenders to desires that are entirely natural, and are reciprocated by a girl of around the same age.

But as we all know, these country constables of the feminist movement are few in number, and are scorned by most women. So one can only conclude that our cowardly law-makers are delighted that their moral supinity is going to cause a young man to be jailed, merely for doing what all young men are programmed by nature to do.

Moreover, you can go back 40 years and not find a prosecution as absurd as the Mullingar case. For at least 22pc of girls aged under 17 today have lost their virginity, which means, of course, that every male responsible is a criminal.

I know! What we really need today is a few more sleuthing fathers, healthily spooring after their daughters at twilight, or beating through the undergrowth with their blackthorn sticks looking for sets of rutting buttocks. Why, that way we could fill our prisons with young males who are guilty of the terrible crime of surrendering to sexual desire.

And then remember this. The law was carefully and deliberately defined by our law-makers in 2006. Having made it illegal for any person under 17 to have sex with another person under-17, the bill then added: "A female child under the age of 17 shall not be guilty of an offence under this Act by reason only of her engaging in an act of sexual intercourse."

TD, by the way, is an old Irish term meaning What A Shower of Wankers.

Irish Independent