A Cavan man who fled to England for a decade after raping one young daughter and sexually assaulting another has been jailed for ten years.
The 44-year-old man abused his daughters from the ages of six and eight, raping one of them "two to three" times a week when their mother was out of the house.
He pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to sample counts of sexually assaulting one girl at their Cavan home from September 1999 to June 2001 and raping and sexually assaulting the other girl between November 1998 and May 2001.
Mr Justice Paul Carney jailed him for 10 years for rape offences and four years for the sexual assaults, to run concurrently with each other. He also ordered he undergo eight years post-release supervision. He has already been added to the sex offenders register.
During the sentence hearing, Mr Justice Carney asked why there had been a delay of nearly a decade in bringing the man to justice. He was told that after the allegations were made, the accused's wife told him to leave the house and go immediately to England.
He was returned to Ireland in 2008 after his arrest on a European Arrest Warrant.