A Galway farmer who raped and sexually abused four of his daughters over a 20-year period has been given 10 life sentences by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.
The 59-year-old widower pleaded guilty to 12 sample counts of rape and indecent assault on dates from 1983 to 1997 from the 153 on the indictment.
He admitted four charges each of raping his eldest and youngest daughters, and two charges each of raping another daughter and indecently assaulting the fourth girl. The 153 charges covered the period 1976 to 1996. He had no previous convictions.
Mr Justice Carney also imposed five-year sentences on the two indecent assault charges and certified him as a sex offender.
He said the Court of Criminal Appeal had recently upheld his decision to impose a life sentence in cases of such seriousness. All the sentences in this case are to run concurrent which he said would be an advantage to the man as it would give him access to the parole board in due course whereas consecutive sentences would have prevented this.
Mr Justice Carney also said he proposed to refer the contents of stories published in the Irish Independent and in the Sunday World following the defendant's guilty plea to the Director of Public Prosecutions for consideration of bringing criminal contempt charges against four journalists and the two publications.
He named the journalists as Isobel Hurley, Marese McDonagh and Brian McDonald of the Irish Independent and Niamh O'Connor of the Sunday World.
Mr Justice Carney noted a 1999 Supreme Court decision that judges were human and that the law could not proceed on the basis that they were incapable of being prejudiced in their views by material damaging to a particular litigant to which they had been unnecessarily exposed.
He said he had been prejudiced as a result of copies of the Irish Independent and Sunday World articles being sent to him and it might be for the Court of Criminal Appeal to decide if he succeeded in applying his professionalism to overcome the prejudice.
The abuse began when the victims were about six-years-old, continuing until they were about 11 or 12.
One of the victims said "this man who was supposed to be our father and who should have looked after us destroyed our lives". They didn't even want the case publicised, she added.