THE IMMINENT release of a convicted paedophile in Britain has posed the question feared by millions of parents: how would you like to live next door to a convicted paedophile?
When Graham Seddon (43) was detained by police in Liverpool earlier this month, he was found to have a colouring book and toys and he readily admitted that he was on the lookout for a child.
In Liverpool parents are outraged that a man likely to be classified as untreatable by psychiatrists will be released into society.
So could it happen here? "Of course it could," said Cian O Tighearnaigh, chief executive of the ISPCC. "In this country we don't even have the reformed legal position which exists in the UK where if someone is convicted of a sexual offence they can be monitored. Here, unless someone is given a life sentence they will not be monitored after their release."
The Department of Justice said 280 people are in custody for sex offences. "Offenders who have completed their sentence cannot be compelled to accept supervision," it laid in a statement.
Cian O Tighearnaigh maintains that monitoring is necessary. Research shows that the rates of recidivism among paedophiles are very high, somewhere between 90 and 95 per cent. This means that if the offender has access to children and is not monitored in therapy, reoffence will occur," he said.
Fianna Fail's justice spokesman, Mr John O'Donoghue, said "there is no doubt that we have to tighten up on the present unacceptable situation". He sees electronic tagging as "one option" but thinks "it would be more pragmatic if it became the precedent for the court in paedophile cases to impose a certain determinate sentence with the recommendation of a suspended sentence with monitoring attached.
"Basically I believe that a person found guilty of paedophile offences would have their name placed on the register," he said, and "the court would seek to see the register in respect of any such application for name change".
According to Paul Murphy, a clinical psychologist working with sex offenders at Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin, there are few rehabilitation programmes for them. "This is something that should be looked at in the context of protecting society," he said.
The objective of the programme at Arbour Hill, where 100 of the 130 inmates are sex offenders, is to diminish the risk they pose to the public and help to reduce the likelihood of reoffending.
Mr Murphy said that when sex offenders are released from prison, "no one knows where they go. This poses a danger to society and it is not helpful to offenders who have been through a therapeutic programme". There is no temporary release for offenders.
He thought a register to monitor paedophiles was it good idea but not if it meant public notification. In the US, Megan's Law, named after a child victim, requires residents to be notified when a convicted offender moves into their area. Mr Murphy argued that this is flawed.
"Public outing is simplistic and has negative consequences like vigilantism," he said. In the US offenders have been abused and hounded out of their homes, and often the families of abusers become targets.
"Another problem with public notification is that it may give the community the illusion of safety through feeding into a false myth of the sex offender as a skulking stranger. In fact, research clearly shows that 85 to 90 per cent of child abusers are related to or known by their victim," Mr Murphy said.
Mr O Tighearnaigh echoes this argument. "There is plenty of evidence from the UK that an isolated and angry paedophile ostracised by society will sever all links, including therapy, and even change his name by deed poll to escape. Public notification only moves the problem down the road," he warned.