A 60-year-old man who indecently assaulted his three daughters over a more than 10-year period will be sentenced next week by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The Dublin man, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of his victims, pleaded guilty to seven sample counts of indecent assault of the three women, who are now in their 30s, on dates between 1977 and 1988.
Judge Katherine Delahunt heard that the girls' parents were both alcoholics and that the abuse occurred while their mother was either in a "drunken stupor" or in hospital.
Garda Antoinette Byrne told Mary Gearty, prosecuting, that the women had made complaints to gardaí in early 2003. Their father voluntarily met gardaí in May 2003, acknowledged his guilt and agreed that the details they had given were accurate.
Garda Byrne told Ms Gearty that the middle sister in age told gardaí her first memory of abuse was her father drying her with a towel following a bath. She said she was terrified and nauseous after being sexually abused.
She told gardaí that if her mother fell asleep on the sofa rather than in bed, one of the sisters would be abused that night.
She said the accused was the perfect father while in the company of others but took any opportunity to abuse her when she was alone with him.
Incidents would occur even when there were people in an adjoining room, and this seemed to excite him, she said.
She would pretend to be dead while her father assaulted her. She was also beaten by him, and he put cigarettes out on her arms.
Her two sisters also made statements about serious sexual abuse.
Erwan Mill-Arden SC, defending, said his client had been sexually abused himself as a child. His marriage had broken up and he no longer drank alcohol.
Mr Mill-Arden said the man accepted that his crimes were "shocking and dreadful" and wanted to offer an apology to his daughters.
He had pleaded guilty at an early stage to "save them more agony than the great agony he has already caused them".