A man who pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of four children has been jailed for eight years.
He cannot be identified and many of the details of the attack must be excluded to protect the identities of the children involved.
Last week the Central Criminal Court heard harrowing details of his attempts to strangle the four young children, believing at one point that he had killed two before moving on to two older children.
The older children managed to resist and the man then fled from the house before telling a relative he had done something stupid.
All four children were taken to hospital and treated for injuries, one of them was unconscious when found.
Mr Justice Michael White said the headline sentence for the offence should be life in prison, given that two younger children were "left for dead" and that he had intended to kill all four.
However he said he had to take into account the aggravating and mitigating factors before passing the appropriate sentence. The judge imposed a sentence of 12 years with the final four years suspended on certain conditions, including that he continue his treatment for psychiatric illness.
The judge said among the aggravating factors was the "narcissistic element" of the offences where the man had shown a "complete lack of respect for the children's autonomy", believing they would be better off dead.
The other aggravating factors were the horrific nature of the offences, the effect on the children's lives and the effect on their future lives which was not possible to quantify. He also took into account the effect of the attacks on the children's mother.
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In mitigation the judge took into account a number of factors including his history of psychiatric illness and its contribution to his state of mind.
However he noted the man did not reach the threshold required for a defence of insanity. Judge White said he had not received a psychiatric report to explain his actions on that day, rather it referred to his history of psychiatric illness, which included a depressive disorder with psychotic features.
The judge also took account of the fact that he had previously played an "exemplary role", which made the offences all the more difficult to understand. The fact that he had no previous convictions and was of good character were also taken into account in mitigation.
The judge said he had received a large volume of documents to consider before he passed sentence including a Tusla report on the children, a psychiatric report on the effects of the attack on one child, medical and psychiatric reports on the man and a number of character references for the man from friends, neighbours and the business community.
Last week, in a victim impact statement, the mother of the children said their lives had been turned upside down by the attacks and she outlined their continuing difficulties in dealing with the ordeal.
But she described them as the bravest children you could meet and said she was now ready to move on and to stop looking over her shoulder and worrying that it could happen again.
