Minister for Children, Dr James Reilly, is seeking to remove the defence of “reasonable chastisement” which applies to parents and child-carers in common law.
No new laws or offences are being created, instead the Minister wants to effectively ban slapping by removing any reference to it.
Grainia Long, chief executive of the ISPCC, says there is a grey area in the law and there should not be.
“One of the reasons were are really strongly welcoming this is – and this change, which is being proposed by Minister Reilly, is because there is a grey area in terms of the protection of children under the law and there never should be” she said.
“We should be really clear what is right and what is wrong when we talk about children and when we talk about their protection” he added.
