A 59-year-old man has been given an eight-year jail term at the Circuit Criminal Court, in Tralee, for sexually assaulting four young girls between 2003 and 2008.
Passing sentence, Judge Carroll Moran said John O'Connell, of Killaly, Castleisland, Co Kerry, should have been aware of society's intolerance of such offences.
He said they were relatively recent and were not committed 40 to 50 years ago when a ''less censorious attitude was taken''.
O'Connell had been found guilty, last March, by majority jury verdict, on 29 charges of sexual assault, following an 11-day trial. He had pleaded not guilty.
The accused, a farmer and former county council employee, was 50 when the assaults started and the victims were aged between 10 and 14.
All the victims were severely traumatised by the abuse and embarrassed by the trial and the court experience, the court was told.
Judge Moran said it was a bad case in that there were multiple incidents of assault over a long, continuous period and the accused had been in a position of trust as he was a friend of the parents of some of the victims.
The judge said the offences were also committed at a time when the accused had to be aware of the opprobrium attached to the sexual abuse of children and society's intolerance of such offences.
The court heard the victims felt scarred for life and robbed of their childhood, but the assaults were not at the higher end of the scale and the accused, a separated father of one, had no other convictions, Judge Moran also said.
The victims are now in their late teens and early twenties and only one felt able to read out a victim impact statement, at a previous sitting of the court.
17 charges related to one victim, eight to a second, three to the third and there was one charge involving a fourth girl.
One of the assaults took place in the county council van O'Connell used to read water meters. Other assaults were in the home of some of the victims and in his own home, the court heard.
Garda Emma Mullane, Tralee, told how the victim of 17 of the assaults was unable to bring herself to come to court, or to write a victim impact statement.
The abuse, in her case, began late in primary school and continued to secondary school. "Matters came to a head after she became disruptive at home," the garda said.
Judge Moran also ordered that O'Connell be placed on the register of sex offenders.
Speaking outside the court afterwards, one of the girls urged other victims of sexual assault to report offences to gardaí.
''If they don't report, the perpetrator has won,'' she told reporters.
Vera O'Leary, director of the Kerry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre, who was with the victims in court, said society owed a debt to four, courageous young women who broke their silence to ensure justice was done.
''Their action should give encouragement to other victims who now know their cases can be heard and they can get justice,'' she said.
Ms O'Leary also said it was her view, and that of the four victims, that sexual assault cases should not be heard in open court, adding that the holding of such cases in public was extremely traumatising for victims.
