In December 2009, Andrews oversaw the introduction of government policy to lower the legal age of consent to 16. Citing a Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution report which recommended the legal age be reduced to 16 from the current 17. Andrews expressed the view the existing laws were "inappropriate" and out of touch with the modern reality of sexual relations between young people, and promised to publish legislation to change the Age of Consent to 16. He noted that Ireland and Malta were "the only countries in Europe with an age of consent of 17". However, the law was not passed by the Oireachtas before the 2011 Irish general election in which Fianna Fáil ceded power to a Fine Gael-Labour coalition.