Children are no match for adults intent on harming them and they need to know that from an early age, a leading children’s charity has warned.

A convicted sex offender embraced by neighbours and friends — including a priest — prior to sentencing is due for release today.

All too often, parents in the past were lulled into a false sense of security that their children were occupied watching television, but it was largely controlled. Now children have the added distractions of video games or the internet, which is essentially unmonitored, because they can expose children to dangerous levels of explicit sex and violence.

The vast majority of the 37% of children who are sexually abusing other children are not classic paedophiles but abuse due to neglect, emotional, physical or sexual abuse, and increasingly because of exposure to porn or an over-sexualised homeplace.

Thousands of attempts to access pornographic websites by Leinster House officials and visitors underlines a wider problem with porn and attitudes to women in Irish society.

Free bereavement counselling must be offered to victims of crime who suffer traumatic events, support groups have said.

Christmas time can trigger a rise in the frequency and severity of abuse against women and children.

The amount of porn young teenagers are accessing is causing so much damage to their psychological growth it must be seen as a major public health crisis.

WE’RE notorious for alcoholism, but we Irish are also becoming addicted to sex, fuelled primarily by online porn, which is easily accessed by smartphones.

National helpline agencies have joined forces to break the silence on sexual violence in relationships.

Just over half of families of homicide victims and victims of rape and sexual assault say they were not informed by gardaí of support services, according to a new survey.

In the early ’90s, her lone voice exposed a dark period in history, writes Conall Ó Fátharta

A Dublin football star has been ordered to complete an anger management course before he is sentenced for an unprovoked attack on a man in a pub.

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has said it is hopeful judges and legal professionals will soon take part in education programmes to help them better understand the consequences of sexual crimes.

A judge has ordered Dublin football star Diarmuid Connolly to spend 80 hours teaching GAA to children following an unprovoked attack on a man in a pub.

The Law Reform Commission suggests the emphasis for consent should be shifted onto the man - where he would be expected to actively seek consent rather than the woman be required to give it, writes Mary Morrissy

Organisations working in the areas of hate crime and domestic violence have welcomed Garda figures which show a sharp rise in such crimes being recorded.

Three women each give their view on the potential impact of the upcoming referendum on Irish healthcare.

Over a decade ago, plans surfaced suggesting Dublin was going to take water from the Shannon. It wasn’t a joke, writes Caroline O’Doherty

A review is underway to make the rape trial system fairer for victims.