Au pairing abroad, once seen as an exotic option for Irish girls leaving school, has declined in popularity since the Louise Woodward trial and the more recent case of Louise Sullivan, a young Australian in whose care a six-month-old baby girl died in London last month. Ms Sullivan, who reportedly had five years' experience as a nanny, has been remanded in custody.
Kathy O'Dwyer, who runs the Job Options Bureau in Cork, which for 10 years has been placing Irish au pairs in the US and Europe and foreign au pairs here , says the number of young Irish women - and au pairs are still almost exclusively women - signing up to her agency to go abroad has dropped significantly in the last year. "We have a target number that we try to achieve every year, but there's no way we'll make that number this year in the current situation."
Ms O'Dwyer has in the past organised open information days, almost recruitment roadshows, in places such as Donegal, Kerry and Galway, and has also used local radio stations to publicise her agency.
"That's been suspended for the time being," she says. "They were just not attracting enough applicants any more to make it worthwhile. Those nanny cases were very emotive and they got huge media coverage. It was sensible for us to keep a low profile for a while, for obvious reasons."
Mary Kelly, director of the Dublin-based Au Pair Bureau of Ireland, has a similar story. "Our numbers of Irish girls wanting to au pair are definitely down somewhat. Every year there's a drop." While Ms Kelly feels other factors are also involved, the Louise Woodward case has not helped.
Hilary Walsh (22), who is from the suburb of Douglas in Cork, and who signed up with the Job Options Bureau in May 1996, says that after the Louise Woodward case even her friends back at home were asking her why she wanted to be an au pair. "The Louise Woodward thing has definitely put girls off wanting to be au pairs," she says.
Hilary was placed with a family in Connecticut for a one-year term. When she arrived the boy in her care was three months old. "I wanted to work with infants," she explains. "No, I didn't have formal child-care experience, but I had done a lot of baby-sitting. And my cousin had had a baby the year before I went, so I learned a lot about small babies from that."
Her year in the United States was a positive one. "I got a lifetime of experience in a year. My host mum was a psychiatrist and was at conferences a lot so we travelled all over the place - Hawaii, New York, Virginia, Chicago - loads of places. It was the best year of my life."
Her time in the US coincided with the death of Matthew Eappen and the arrest of Louise Woodward. "Myself and all the au pairs I knew talked about it, of course. It made families more aware that the au pair was at home all day, and they started wondering what they were doing.
"It didn't make me nervous, or affect my relationship with my host family, but I could see that it would make some people nervous.
"I was 21 when I went, so I was pretty copped on. Personally, I think 18 is really a bit too young to go, but I suppose it depends on the girl."
What is the difference between an au pair and a nanny? "Usually au pairs would be travelling to a country which does not speak their native language," explains Kathy O'Dwyer. "But this obviously does not apply to Irish girls going to the States with our agency, who are still called au pairs. It's nothing to do with whether they have qualifications or not. Some have formal training and some don't. They're all classed as au pairs because of the visa requirements.
"There is an au pair cultural exchange visa, where the emphasis is on integration into the community. All our au pairs are required to take classes, a bit like VEC classes here. That makes up the educational component. Foreign au pairs would go to language classes." So the terms au pair and nanny are, in effect, interchangeable.
To a certain extent, freak accidents aside, agencies are only as good as their screening and follow-up interview processes, which vary greatly. JOB recruits only girls who fill the following criteria. They must be aged between 18 and 26, have completed second-level education and have gained at least one pass, have no criminal record, produce a doctor's certificate, supply two character references - one of which must be from a non-family member - and have some proven experience of child care, whether gained through baby-sitting or from a formal course.
Kathy O'Dwyer also feels there are other, less sensational reasons why fewer Irish girls want to become au pairs now. "Parents can have their own agendas, too. It's a great excuse for those parents who wouldn't want to let their daughter go away. And if the girls themselves aren't that concerned about the possibilities of things going terribly wrong with the young children in their care, it can be their parents who are concerned for them.
"Also, there are more options open to young girls now. They don't have to join an au pair agency to have the opportunity to travel."
There is a modest payment of $139.05 for an au pair's 45-hour week, about the equivalent of a week's dole.
Interestingly, Kathy feels that the huge media coverage the Louise Woodward case attracted was concentrated in English-speaking countries. "We are not, for example, having any problem recruiting Spanish or Italian au pairs to come to Ireland. But yes, there's no question about it, in Ireland and Britain, the numbers of girls joining agencies to go to the States has been dropping."
Mary Kelly says part of the reason for the falling numbers is the economic boom. "Girls who would have been studying languages and wanted to go to the Continent to au pair for that reason are now studying computers. They're getting jobs here, ones which they can earn more from."
Niamh Johnson (24) is from Co Roscommon. She signed up this month with JOB, and hopes to go to the US for a year. "I want to travel and experience a new culture. I don't mind where I'm placed."
Niamh has worked for three years as a Montessori teacher and also had a stint as a live-in nanny in Ireland. She does not think 18 is too young to be caring for infants providing you have some experience.
"Yes, my friends mentioned Louise Woodward when they heard I wanted to au pair in the States," says Niamh. "But I told them they had been watching too much television. That was an isolated case, which just got a lot of bad publicity."
Nonetheless, after Australian nanny Louise Sullivan was remanded in custody last month, the Worldwide Nanny Register issued this grimly pessimistic statement. "Every parent must now be living in fear for the safety of their children when faced with leaving them in the care of others."