A man who indecently assaulted his three daughters for more than 11 years has been given a five-and-a-half-year jail sentence by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The 60-year-old Dublin man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, admitted seven sample counts of indecent assault of the three women on dates between 1977 and 1988. The victims are now in their 30s.
Judge Katherine Delahunt said he was supposed to protect his victims but instead provided a "house of horror and fear". She said his daughters had had no childhood, lived in fear of both his temper and his assaults, and this had a lasting effect on them.
Judge Delahunt heard that both of the girls' parents were alcoholics and that the abuse occurred while their mother was either in a "drunken stupor" or in hospital.
Garda Antoinette Byrne told Mary Rose Gearty, prosecuting, that the women complained to gardaí in early 2003. Their father voluntarily met gardaí in May 2003 and acknowledged his guilt.
Judge Delahunt suspended the final year of the sentence.