The trial judge in a case of a Louth man charged with murdering his infant nephew today complained that the law on insanity in Ireland is rooted in the 1800s and that the legislature has been slow to change it.

A 20-year-old Louth man accused of the murder of his infant nephew told gardai that he had strangled the child before trussing him up with rope and dropping him off a railway bridge into the water below, the Central Criminal Court heard today.