Sex with a child: 2 yearsStealing at work: 4 years

OVERLY lenient sentences for men found guilty of having sex with teenage girls are failing to protect the most vulnerable in society, child protection specialists have said. [Pictured: Barnardos' Fergus Finlay]

Reacting to news that two men in two separate cases were yesterday sentenced to just two years in prison for having sex with young teens, the head of children’s charity Barnardos, Fergus Finlay, warned that society was failing to protect young people by not meting out adequate sentences for sexual abuse.

The sentences came in the same week that a post office manager who stole €22,000 to fund a gambling addiction was given four years.