Should mandatory sentencing be introduced to make sure this never happens again?

Not according to Michael O'Higgins, one of the most respected barristers in the country.

"It is my firm view that it's not the way to go, " he told the Sunday Tribune. "It's a blunt instrument that will undoubtedly result in an injustice. The only reason it's even being considered is because it makes people feel as if something is being done. But in reality, it would just lead to rough justice."

O'Higgins said that the call for minimum sentences was part of a recent, more general trend towards introducing blanket punishments for criminals.

"Politicians are selling these draconian laws to the public without any regard to the particular circumstances of individual cases, " he said. "And the public are lapping it up, because they want to see a certain group of people whom they perceive as being 'them' or 'they' and they want to see them put in jail. But the whole thing is oversimplified. People are not looking at the real situations."

It was ironic, said O'Higgins, because the same people who avidly support minimum sentences for criminals often find themselves sitting in his office. "They're there with their offspring, who has done something wrong, and the first word out of their mouths is 'But'. It's a whole different scenario when you're on the other side."

Even directly in relation to Mary Shannon's case, O'Higgins insists that mandatory sentencing is not the answer. "That's what the appeal court is there for, " he said. "That is how the case should be dealt with."

But according to the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland, a much stronger approach is needed to fix this issue. And lenient sentencing is only the tip of the iceberg.

"The ruling in Mary Shannon's case gave a green light to sexual offenders all over the country, " said Fiona Neary, head of RCNI.

"In making his decision, Carney told sexual offenders that if they get out of their minds on drugs or drink, then they can break into a woman's house and rape her in her own bed while she's asleep, and her children are in the next room. They can do all that, and expect to walk free."

The legal co-ordinator for the RCNI, Kate Mulkerrins, said that while the organisation was not calling for mandatory sentencing, they did support the introduction of statutory guidelines.

"These guidelines would detail minimum and maximum sentences, as well as outlining exceptions, " she said. "This allows for judicial discretion, while at the same time having massive benefits in terms of consistent sentencing. It would be like a jigsaw puzzle for judges, fitting the offender and the offence to the appropriate sentence. It would be a system much more along the lines of what already exists in England and Wales."

However, according to Mulkerrins, even if this were to be introduced tomorrow it wouldn't necessarily make a dent in the numbers of rapes in the country.

"You can't view sentencing in isolation from all the other parts of the process, " she said. "Two of the main reasons for sending someone to jail is to act as a punishment, and also to act as a deterrent to others. But even mandatory sentences wouldn't be a deterrent to rapists if the chances of being caught continue to be so low. It's like drink driving, the loss of your licence and penalty points only work as a deterrent when coupled with high detection rates."

In order to tackle this, Mulkerrins said it is necessary to go right back to the beginning of the process, starting with the garda�. "We need specialist investigators for sexual violence, specialist chaperone officers to accompany victims of attacks, and a complete overhaul of training for officers. You also need specialist prosecutors in court, to help dispel some of the myths about rape allegations."

There also needs to be more transparency about cases that don't get to court, said Mulkerrins. "Only about 10% of reported cases are actually making it to court, " she said. "And that's not taking into account the huge numbers of cases that are not reported. The Savi report in 2002 found that 10% of all women had been raped, and 21% had experienced attempted penetration.

That's 31% of all the women in the country.

Let's be under no illusions here, rape and sexual assault are highly prevalent in Ireland. The number of reported attacks do not come close to reflecting the reality."

Those cases that do get to court are "cherry-picked" by the Director of Public Prosecutions, without any explanation for his choices, said Mulkerrins.

"That's the way it works, the DPP is not required to explain his decisions, " she said.

"But he persists in this ridiculous policy of choosing only un-loseable cases. If he is not getting files of cases that he feels he can win and obviously he must not be then we need to know that. We need to know what's missing from the files, so that we can do something about it. It's so frustrating, this wall of silence. The climate of secrecy surrounding rape cases in the courts is very similar to the secrecy surrounding rape itself."

But there was no element of secrecy in Judge Paul Carney's decision last week to let Mary Shannon's rapist walk free with a suspended three-year sentence. Carney quite clearly said his decision was based on a previous case called NY, in which he sentenced a convicted rapist to three years in prison. This sentence was overturned by the appeal court, and the judge was taking that into account.

"Having regard to the approach taken by the CCA to this type of offence in this type of case, " he said, "I have to ask myself whether I would be comfortable to imprison this young man." The answer, clearly, was no.

But it appears there is a general bafflement among both the public and the legal community as to how the well-respected judge could have likened two cases that seem to be so obviously different.

"Honestly, no one understands it, " said one barrister who spoke to the Sunday Tribune. "In NY, the man did not break into the house in the Shannon case, he did. In NY, the victim and the man were kissing for a while, and were lying in the same bed together, before the victim fell asleep."

In the Shannon case, Adam Keane got into Mary Shannon's bed when she was asleep.

In the NY case, the man apologised straight after the rape, he left a note saying sorry, he confessed immediately to the gardai, he tried not to cause the victim any more upset. There was no trial, because of his guilty plea. In Mary Shannon's case, she had to go through the ordeal of a full trial, because of the not guilty plea. The two cases are simply not comparable. No one understands how Carney reached the decision he did."

The DPP has yet to make his decision on whether he can appeal this case and win.

Meanwhile, Mary Shannon is in Ennis, living side by side with the man who raped her.

As if the trial had never happened.