Curry sentencing - Longer terms needed

There has been anguish and shock at the brevity of the four-year jail sentence imposed on Edwin Curry, who was convicted of 189 cases of indecent assault on nine girls between five and 15 years of age. He lured the young girls into a shed with sweets over a 21-year period.

The whole thing highlights a degree of ambiguity that society adopted towards such crimes for decades. Church authorities covered up clerical paedophile abuse. In some instances members of the Garda Síochána and the criminal justice system were complicit in the cover up, along with society as a whole for essentially turning a blind eye.

This kind of crime was also covered up within families, because the abusers were often close family relatives. As a society we need to face up to the problem and treat it with the severity it deserves, not so much out of a sense of revenge but as means of protecting vulnerable children.