Gardai in Dublin have confirmed they are investigating allegations against a 19-year-old woman of child sexual abuse. A Garda spokesman could not confirm if a file on the allegations had been sent to the DPP, but said the investigation was "at an advanced stage".
The Sunday Tribune reported yesterday that gardai in west Dublin were investigating allegations of sexual abuse against the woman, involving up to 40 children aged six months to 14 years.
The allegations were first made in August after a couple told gardai they had discovered the woman abusing an 11-year-old boy in their home, where she was baby-sitting their children.
When it receives the file the DPP's office may take some weeks to consider if the matter can proceed to a prosecution. The file is understood to contain detailed statements from parents and children.
The couple who first reported the allegations want to be moved from the area where the abuse is alleged to have happened. They say they have applied to South Dublin County Council and the Eastern Health Board for a housing transfer.
An EHB spokeswoman said the board could not rehouse the family unless they were homeless. The EHB pays a supplementary rent allowance to homeless people.
It is understood that the family first contacted a Dublin newspaper some weeks ago. At that stage, the allegations being investigated i centred on two children.
The director of the Rape Crisis Centre, Ms Olive Braiden, did not want to comment on the inquiry since she was not familiar with it.
In general, she said that abuse by women "is not unusual" but "it is not as much reported as abuse by males."
"Both males and females find it more difficult to disclose sexual abuse by females. It often only emerges when a client has been in therapy for a long and intensive period. "The majority of people who talk about abuse by women are men. Very often it's a mother, cousin or an aunt". Most people "aren't very ready to come forward with this kind of abuse", she said.
In the year to June 1997, 6 per cent of the adults counselled at the centre for sexual abuse as children identified a female relative as the abuser.
This compared to 72 per cent who said it was a male relative. A further 6 per cent identified a stranger, and 22 per cent said it was an acquaintance. Neither of these categories was broken down into men and women.
