Who, reading the news item about a former soldier who was sentenced to multiple sentences of life imprisonment for the serial rape of six little girls - two of his daughters and four nieces - could forbear to throw their newspaper in despair at the organisational delinquencies this State is capable of, asks Kevin Myers.
On Tuesday, The Irish Times reported: "The court heard that the man's wife first complained about his offending with his daughters in 1987. However, though a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, gardaí were directed that he was not to be charged.
"Health board social workers took charge of the case and he was banned from living within the home for a time but was eventually allowed back.
"Garda Felim Moran told the court that the evidence from the victims, confirmed by the defendant, showed that his offending restarted. He admitted to taking the girls in turns to abuse them in the house and in other places."
So here we have a serial rapist of little girls, going back 17 years at least, to when he was 32, and his victims were mere infants. From the time of the initial complaint through his glittering career as a rapist, at least four separate State agencies had possessed some legal or organisational authority over this creature. The first was the Army. The second was An Garda Síochána. The third was the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The fourth was the regional health board. A possible fifth were the courts. And on their combined watch, this worthless piece of scum repeatedly raped his daughters and his nieces.
Let's go back over this. The wife reported his sexual interference with his very young daughters in 1987. This was investigated, and a file prepared, but the office of the DPP directed that no charge be brought. Why? Instead, the case was handed over to health board social workers. What legal authority had the power to bypass the courts and hand a police matter - child-rape - to social workers? The rapist, we learn, was then banned from the family home. Banned? By whom or what? If by a court order, then the courts were involved, and thus a fifth State agency was complicit in this case.
Later, he was allowed back home again. Why, by whom, on what authority, and for what reason? He then turned that home into a decade-long rape camp for children. One daughter told the trial the girls were afraid to sleep at home when he was there. With each knock at their bedroom door in the morning, these terrified little creatures, cowering in their beds, knew what would happen next. This was their childhood: repeated rape, with interludes between rape, courtesy of this State.
It was this same brave girl who initially complained to gardaí in order to save others from possible abuse. Her father was serving in the Lebanon at the time, and there unsuccessfully attempted suicide. He later admitted all the offences, before voluntarily leaving the Army, with an honourable discharge.
Jesus Christ. What is going on here? Why was a man facing a charge of child-rape allowed to leave the Army with an honourable discharge? When did the Army first discover the allegations? If it knew of them back in 1987, why was he allowed to remain as a serving soldier? Why did the DPP "direct" that gardaí take no action, meaning there was no trial? Who in authority decided that incestuous rape was merely a matter for social workers? Who were these social workers, to whom did they answer, and what power did they have over this animal's life? Who chose to bar him from his family home, and by what legal authority? And most of all, who then in lawful authority chose to readmit him to that home, once again to rape and rape and rape?
Judge Paul Carney did well in despatching such scum to eight life sentences and 24 years in jail. Yet justice has still to be seen to be done. The rapist remains unjustly protected by anonymity, in order - justly - to protect his victims. One of his nieces declared he had destroyed all six victims' lives. If any of the victims are reading this, oh believe me, it need not be so - and please, believe me also: we men are not all like him.
However, there are other considerations. At least four State agencies were involved in this case, either close up and personal, like the social workers, or at one remove - the Army, An Garda Síochána, the DPP, and possibly the courts also. So, how could such a reptile have continued to have access to his victims? Yes, yes, yes, 1987 was a long time ago; but back then, even in those dark ages, it was an unspeakably heinous crime for a man to rape his own child-daughters and child-nieces.
Yet even after the first complaints in 1987, another 13 fun-packed years of violating the little bodies of female children were to follow. So who were the State officials who, by their ineptitude, inertia, stupidity or plain criminal neglect, allowed this vile piece of filth access to these defenceless little girls? And will anyone be held to account for this truly scandalous affair, which in other jurisdictions would have been the occasion for a sworn public enquiry, with the promise of ruined careers hanging over the wretched heads of those responsible? Oh no.
Tribunals drone on down the years, but there, uninvestigated and unpunished, lurks yet a quite monstrous act of criminal delinquency by the State. The true heart of darkness.