A 63-year-old Co Offaly man who raped one of his daughters and sexually abused another two has been jailed for eight years by the Central Criminal Court.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne sentenced him to eight years on seven counts of raping his second-eldest daughter, and also imposed eight other sentences ranging between 18 months and four years on the remaining counts of sexual assault on her and his two other daughters.
All the sentences are to run concurrently with the eight-year sentence for rape. Ms Justice Dunne said she had structured the sentences in such a way that they need not be consecutive.
"He never showed any sign of remorse and offered no apology for the evil he inflicted on us. We find this unforgivable," the sisters said in a letter they handed to Ms Justice Dunne at the sentence hearing.
"Our age never mattered to him, nor did it matter to him that the most precious time of our lives, our childhood, was taken from us so cruelly and is something that can never be returned to us."
Their father, a painter, was convicted unanimously by a jury on February 8th. In addition to finding him guilty of raping and sexually assaulting his second-eldest daughter, the jury also returned 16 guilty verdicts of indecent assault on his eldest daughter, now 36, and one guilty verdict in relation to a third daughter.
He was found not guilty by the jury on five counts of indecent assault of his eldest daughter, two in relation to a third daughter and one in relation to a fourth.
He pleaded guilty at the start of his trial to seven counts of indecent assault of two of his daughters during the same period.
One of these guilty pleas was in relation to his eldest daughter, and the remaining six related to his second-eldest daughter. The offences happened on dates from 1973 to 1987.