Review demand over cruelty sentence

Children’s right advocate Fergus Finlay has expressed deep concern that a woman who cruelly ill-treated seven of her children walked free from Ennis Circuit Court this week.

Mr Finlay, CEO of children’s charity Barnardos, has called for a review of the penalty imposed by Judge Carroll Moran, which has sparked yet another debate about inconsistencies in custodial sentencing in general.

In a case that has grabbed public attention across the country, the judge imposed a four-year prison sentence, suspended for seven years, on the 38-year-old woman, who pleaded guilty to neglecting and ill-treating seven of her children over a nine-year period, between March 2001 and July 2010.

The convicted woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was described by her eldest daughter as “cruel and evil”.  At a previous hearing she pleaded that her mother and her ex-partner not be freed.