Today she is a married, articulate young woman, underweight, beset with health problems, traumatised and still bearing scars from the beatings she says her father administered every day.

But she is determined to have her voice heard: "Even if it kills me, I am going to have my say now. The reason I didn't do it before was I thought I was to blamef I'm embarrassed; I'm ashamed of my life. People will say 'why is she doing this to her parents?', but the only thing I can think of is a voice saying: 'Please, Daddy, don't hurt me'.

"I'm doing this [interview] in the hope that my life can change. I'm 27 years old and I feel that my life is over, not beginning. I'm so sick and tired of it all. I deserve something and I think she [Kelly] deserves somethingf She asked me to promise if anything happened to her to tell what was going on."

In her interview with the Sunday Tribune today, Geraldine Fitzgerald reveals that she was prevented from giving evidence of the abuse suffered by her older sister, Kelly, during the prosecution of her parents because her father withheld parental consent.

Their parents, Sue and Des Fitzgerald, were convicted of wilful neglect of Kelly and each served 18-month prison sentences, but a second charge of occasioning actual bodily harm was dropped.

Ritual beatings Last year, Geraldine Fitzgerald made a formal statement of complaint to gardai about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her parents. She claims she was deprived of food, left to sleep with the dogs outside the house at night, isolated from her siblings and ritually beaten by her father.

No charges have been brought and nobody has ever been prosecuted in relation to the abuse of Geraldine Fitzgerald, who was taken into care after Kelly's death. Suffering bad health, she is now dependent on the state for financial support. She has never received monetary compensation for the nightmare that was her childhood.

The Kelly Fitzgerald case . . . described by the then Minister for Justice Maire Geoghegan-Quinn as "the most horrific abuse case in the history of the state" . . . was revealed when the 15-year-old died from blood poisoning in a London hospital after travelling from the family's Mayo home.

An inquiry set up by the Western Health Board after Kelly's death recommended that the constitution be amended to assert children's rights.

"The inquiry supports and echoes the recommendation of the Kilkenny Incest Investigation, that consideration be given by the government to the amendment of Articles 41 and 42 of the constitution so as to include a statement of the constitutional rights of children, " stated the inquiry's report, which was entitled 'Kelly: A Child Is Dead'.

Mystery surrounds the publication of that report. At first, the Western Health Board voted to publish only its recommendations, due to reported legal concerns about potential damage to the reputations of certain health and welfare professionals. Subsequently, the Oireachtas committee on the family overruled that decision and ordered that the report be published in full.

However, the Government Publications Office has no record of it ever having been published.

This weekend, the Minister for Children, Brian Lenihan, said that he was willing to re-examine the horrific case of child abuse within the Fitzgerald family that prompted an official inquiry.

Responding to the appalling chronicle of cruelty and neglect, which is detailed in today's interview, Lenihan said her story made it even more essential that the incoming government press ahead with the proposed children's referendum.

"It isn't going to be easy, but we are committed to the referendum, " he said.

"We're talking about making the law reflect the reality of children's situations in cases where they have been abused. A case like this makes it imperative that we go ahead with it. This came up in the C case as well.

"I'd certainly be prepared to look at the whole Fitzgerald case again, " he added.