You don't have to be a paedophile to abuse children. You can beat them or reduce their sense of self to shreds simply by being an upstanding member of the community. Yet as the sense of shock over States of Fear starts urging us to action, the message coming from our politicians is that whoever they may be, abusers are not one of us. This is a denial we need to resist.
If you want to abuse children, as a few citizens do, you may take some satisfaction in realising that as things stand, you will be targeted in inverse proportion to the real-life occasions in which children are most at risk. The safest way of gaining access to children is to have a family of your own. Whatever else changes, there's no place like home.
It helps to organise your home along so-called traditional lines. Encourage a family ethos which maintains a centralised power structure organised on the strictest hierarchical models, just like a real government.
In this spirit, oppose attempts to devolve power elsewhere on the grounds that neighbours like yours cannot be trusted with too much information. After all, they will not understand that what you do to your own children is for their own good in the long term or because they secretly enjoy it, or so you think.
In the event that you do not have a family of your own or if your access to them does not always come at times which are convenient, do not despair.
You can join the minority of abusers who take up jobs as swimming coaches, teachers, ministers, childcare workers or baby-sitters in situations almost as closed and self-sufficient, but somewhat more liable to be exposed.
If all that fails, you can sign up to the absolute minority of abusers characterised as "stranger danger" who pick on children whom they hardly know.
You should carefully consider your choice of career, for other reasons too. It will help enormously if you are a professional, since the current stereotype has it that most abusers belong to the lower classes or to isolated groups like the clergy. Think about becoming a judge, a banker, managing director, doctor, senior counsel, film-maker or the like. Professional loyalties will offer an added layer of protection.
Don't restrict yourself to physical abuse; expand the vocabulary to shouting, bullying and other forms of socially secure behaviour.
Don't talk about loving them, talk about owning them, particularly in custody disputes, but do not encourage male-led discussions of male aggression or male violence, since this may eventually point the finger at you. If women are leading, you have little to worry about, since this is old hat and people find it dull.
Gender stereotyping will work particularly to your advantage if you are female. Unless you look like Myra Hindley, most people will be unable to believe so sweet a creature could engage in such heinous crimes. You are generally viewed as a natural carer, so people will tend to leave you alone.
Console yourself at times of stress with the knowledge that the most recent female sexual abuse surveys in Ireland are already 10 years old, so chances are that UK indications of a rate running at approximately 20 per cent, instead of the 5 per cent we estimate here, will not be taken seriously here.
Above all, disassociate yourself from feminism and all its acts whenever you get the chance, because overwhelming evidence indicates that the greater the status of women, the better the chances for children. It was after all that woman, Mary Raftery, who provoked all this.
You may become quite worried at your future prospects in the wake of States of Fear. Someone may name you in the course of the healing forum's work or as a result of client disclosures when and if the new counselling service ever gets up and running. This is a legitimate concern and you must take it very seriously.
Remain optimistic: on balance you can rest assured that you are unlikely to be successfully prosecuted for a range of reasons.
First, the statute of limitations will probably protect you from prosecution - there are a few squeaks about changing it, but the Government is far too worried about the consequences of such a precedent, particularly in other realms of white-collar crime.
Secondly, the law won't allow victims to be legally represented unless judicial concessions are made, so if you have terrorised them effectively and can pay the admittedly huge rates of top barristers - some of whom may find your case an interesting professional challenge - your victims will be far too fragile to resist this combined onslaught.
Must you fear a permanent reduction in your opportunities for abuse? Yes - but think positively for, so long as there remains no cohesion in the way the State deals with children and their welfare, opportunities for abuse, while likely to become limited, will not disappear completely.
Politicians think in the short term, after all; departments are part of a government machine where the first item on the agenda is the power base of the agency you represent.
THE positive aspect of this political and institutional fragmentation is that once this wave of revulsion passes, there is a reasonable chance that few will care enough to manage longer term change and those who do will find it hard to justify their mission on a cost-benefit basis.
The new social services inspectorate will be stretched beyond its capacity from day one. Given the experience of Kevin Murphy, the Ombudsman, you may conclude that even if the Government does create an ombudsman for children, whether inside or outside central government, she or he will have their work cut out trying to cut through the red tape and position-guarding of all the different interests and agencies involved.
Who are they? The Departments of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Health, Education, Social, Community and Family Affairs, the Director of Public Prosecutions, to name a few.
A final warning. Do not let the Taoiseach solve the problem of turf wars by creating a special unit in his Department. This would bring cohesion and thus is the one structural initiative every child abuser must resist.
Discourage it. Ignore inter-agency approaches like Frank Fahey's new model for youth homelessness. Better to insist that children and childcare in all situations continue to be seen as a women's issue.
This will maintain its low-level priority as a political portfolio, as well as guaranteeing there is no collateral damage to the pecking order within the ongoing turf wars between the agencies, departments and individuals who had responsibility all along.
It's as simple as taking candy from a baby - as every abuser always knew.