"There are kids in danger. What's being done? Nothing.

I do think kids are at risk, " said Kieran Collins, chairman of the Rathdown Road and District Residents' Association in Phibsborough. "Our local community had to discover he was here and then warn everyone in the area through the newsletter. Is he being monitored? We don't know. We want something done, changes made under the new criminal-justice bill, not just for us, for everyone.

There should be some restrictions on convicted sex offenders living beside schools."

O'Grady is not listed on the Irish sex offenders register as it only came into existence under the sex offenders act 2001. O'Grady was deported to Ireland in 2000 after spending seven years in prison in the US on counts of sexually abusing two boys.

The register does not apply retrospectively, according to the garda press office.

A garda spokesman this weekend said he could not comment on whether O'Grady was being monitored as they do not discuss individual cases.

Collins said: "Yes, we want him out of our area. But we don't just want him moved on to somewhere else. Someone who's been convicted should not live in an area where they can be tempted.

He's a ticking timebomb."

As he entered his downstairs flat on the North Circular Road yesterday, O'Grady declined to speak at length with the Sunday Tribune.

There are "approximately 1,000 people" on Ireland's sex offenders register at present but not all garda� have access to the register, according to another garda spokesperson.

Collins has been lobbying local councillors and TDs to take action over local residents' concerns at O'Grady's presence in the area.

The Department of Justice confirmed it is not an arrestable offence for convicted international sex offenders to fail to declare their status to garda� but said that legislation was being drafted to close this loophole.

It is currently an offence carrying a maximum prison sentence of one year, or a fine of up to Euro1,900, for convicted sex offenders from a jurisdiction with a similar sex offenders register not to inform garda� when they enter the country.

However, garda� must first secure a court order before they can arrest a person who commits this offence.

The criminal-justice sexual offenders bill, due this year, proposes closing this loophole by making it an arrestable offence and by raising the maximum prison sentence for non-compliance with notifying garda� to five years.

Collins said this proposed legislation to amend "one tiny loophole" in the law would not go far enough as it did not address the issue of convicted sex offenders living in close proximity to schools.

"Why not, since they're doing the criminal-justice bill at the moment, address this issue for us?" he asked. "It seems to be they're putting it off. Why not do it sooner rather than later?"

Fr Tom Doyle - a Dominican priest from Vienna in Virginia, USA, who counsels victims of clerical sexual abuse - described O'Grady as "one of the worst sexual predators within the Catholic church".

"I've dealt with thousands of cases and I'd have to say that O'Grady is probably one of the most dangerous and pathetic of them all, " he said.

Paul Gilligan, chief executive of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC), said the sex offenders register was more of a "notification system than a register".

"It should be retrospective of sex offenders before the legislation came into effect in 2001, " he said, adding that it was a worry that sexual offenders like O'Grady were not placed on the register, as serial convicted offenders obviously posed a greater risk as a repeat offender.