Posthumously, her fears appear wellfounded.

Last July, her father, Dave Roberts, successfully sued her abuser, John Bowden, in an unprecedented civil action heard in Clonmel Circuit Court. He argued that the assault committed in a Thurles swimming pool 25 years ago by Bowden, a former postman now aged 62 who held her under the water while he molested her, led to his daughter's suicide. The court upheld his claim and awarded maximum permissible damages of 25,395, plus legal costs.

In August, Dave Roberts' solicitor wrote to the DPP, relaying the outcome of the civil suit and inquiring if Bowden might now be prosecuted by the state, using a statement sworn by Jane, a twin sister and a "beautiful daughter", to gardai on 9 November 1999. The reply came in September that the matter had been reviewed "at the highest level" and, due to the passage of time since the first prosecution was abandoned after Jane's death, the case was shut.

"It was important for her to be believed, " says her father. "Every time she looked in the mirror, she could see this creature behind her. His face was looking back at her all the time. I took her to the garda station to make the complaint that day eight years ago and I remember asking her before we went in if she was sure she wanted to do this. She looked at me and said, 'Dad, I have to get this bastard out of my head.'" Worry confounded by waiting "After that she became concerned that he wouldn't be prosecuted. She felt things were dragging on. I would ring the garda station to find out what was happening and try explaining to her that these things took time but she kept worrying that it was never going to happen. When I rang the guards, the information I was given was that a file had gone to the DPP in March or April.

In December, after Jane had died in October, I wrote a letter to the DPP asking what had happened to the prosecution. In January 2001, I got a reply to the DPP confirming what I had been told informally; that the case had been reviewed at the highest level and no further action would be taken.

"I'm very angry about the DPP's refusal to bring charges. I cannot understand the decision.

It seems incredible to me that the state cannot put any intrinsic value on my daughter's life."

In contrast to the time constraints taken into account in the DPP's prosecution decisions, no deadline is statutorily imposed in civil law for cases of child sexual abuse. It was removed under the Statute of Limitations (Amendment) Act in 2000.

Burden of blame on the wrong shoulders The case of Jane Roberts is the latest instance of child abuse allegations which the DPP's office has declined to pursue in the criminal courts.

Two weeks ago, Geraldine Thompson, whose claim that she was tortured and neglected by her parents is supported by state documents, including the report of an official inquiry into the death of her sister, Kelly Fitzgerald, was informed that the DPP will not bring charges in her case.

Though the DPP is precluded from explaining his decisions, it is believed the lapse of time was again the impediment.

This is Geraldine Thompson's third failed attempt to have her voice heard in a court of law.

Her parents withheld their consent for her to testify against them when she was 12 and they were convicted of the wilful neglect of Kelly. At 16, she withdrew a complaint against her mother and father after being visited by family members while in the care of the Western Health Board.

Now aged 27 and in bad psychological and physical health, Geraldine Thompson, who brought a fresh complaint to gardai two years ago, believes the state's refusal to charge her parents "is basically saying, 'Geraldine, everything you've been told all your life is the truth. It's all your fault.' I've always felt I'm to blame for what was done to me as a child. In order to move on, somebody has to take the blame but the state won't allow them to take the responsibility for it.

"I've been told that too much time has gone by but too much time hasn't gone by. I tried to make statements over the years and I got pushed off. My health has been on the line. I had to get completely away from my family to see what was true. If I'm to get on with my life, somebody has to be punished for it. If that's not going to happen I don't see how I can go on living. I believe Kelly will not rest in peace until this ends."

The Statute of Limitations (Amendment) Act, 2000, which removed the statute bar on civil law suits relating to child sexual abuse, was originally designed to apply also to cases of child physical abuse but a government amendment to the Oireachtas bill excluded the physical abuse aspect. The then minister for justice, John O'Donoghue, told the Dail: "With other forms of child abusef the issues are not always as clear-cut as in the case of sex abuse."

He added: "Questions arise from the wide range of activities which, at one end of the scale, would have been classed until not too long ago as reasonable corporal punishment and, at the other end of the scale, are by any standard unacceptable but may not affect the ability of a person to take legal proceedings in a given time."

In August of the same year, the Law Reform Commission recommended in a consultation paper that the statutory limit on child physical abuse cases be extended to a fixed period of 12 years from the age of majority, with a further three years allowable at the discretion of a judge.

Asked if this recommendation should be made law, in light of Geraldine Thompson's case, justice minister Brian Lenihan replied that the Law Reform Commission had only made a provisional recommendation seven years ago and that its final report on the issue was awaited.

"It would be Barnardos' strong view that, where there are enough grounds, people who were abused as children should have the opportunity to have these matters decided by a court, " says Norah Gibbons, director of advocacy with Barnardos, who is also a member of the Commission on Child Abuse. "If a victim can't get a case heard by a court it is justice denied. One of the biggest lessons everyone has learned is that child victims of abuse feel they were not listened to. There is a much greater issue than costeffectiveness here. It's extremely difficult for victims to let their voices be heard when they are children. We must ensure that we don't victimise them again when they reach an age when they are able to speak about what happened to them."

When the high-profile chef, Conrad Gallagher, was extradited from the US on foot of an accusation that he had stolen three paintings from the Fitzwilliam Hotel in Dublin (he was subsequently found not guilty on all charges), the state's inconsistency infuriated many people who were affected by an epidemic of child sexual abuse in the sport of swimming. One campaigner, Bart Nolan, wrote to the minister for justice, pointing out that the DPP had never sought the extradition from the US of George Gibney, who stood accused of raping more than a dozen young swimmers. "If you can extradite Conrad Gallagher for three paintings, why can't you extradite George Gibney for seven rapes?" Nolan demanded.

The "seven rapes" constituted charges originally brought against the former national and Olympic swimming coach, relating to male and female victims as young as 11 and 12. Gibney argued in a High Court judicial review that too much time had gone by for him to defend himself. When the High Court rejected his claim, he appealed to the Supreme Court in 1994 and won. By the time four more swimmers contacted gardai with complaints of child rape against Gibney in 1996, he had fled the country. The DPP decided not to seek Gibney's extradition from the US, where he now lives.

Lack of prosecutions, abundant injustice "The awful thing was that, with the first group of us who initially complained, the police tried to base the case on the older victims in an effort to protect the younger ones from the trauma, " says a former swimmer who was among the first seven complainants, "but the court found that they were too long ago." Another former swimmer, who was one of the four complainants comprising the second investigation, hung herself by a scarf from a tree the day gardai informed her that the DPP had decided not to seek Gibney's extradition. But for the chance intervention of a passer-by, she would be dead. She and her parents believe the state's failure to vindicate her rights have aggravated the psychological injury she suffered when Gibney raped her in a Florida hotel in 1991.

The lingering sense of injustice felt by many of Gibney's victims was provoked again two weeks ago when an application was rejected by a West Virginia court for the extradition of Unitarian minister Rev George Exoo in relation to the assisted suicide of Rosemary Toole-Gilhooley in Donnybrook in 2002. When it transpired that assisted suicide is neither a US federal nor a Virginia state crime, several of Gibney's victims expressed deepseated anger that the case was given a higher priority than the multiple rapes of children.

Eamonn Barnes, the inaugural office holder, was the DPP when Gibney eluded prosecution under the Supreme Court ruling. Another consultation paper published by the Law Reform Commission in 1989, which dealt with child sexual abuse, noted: "Disquiet was voiced to the Commission by doctors working in the field of child abuse concerning f the use of discretion by the DPP. The remark was made by one doctor that it was perceived that the DPP only prosecuted when the suspect admitted the offence, there were unequivocal physical indications and the child was a good witness." The commission analysed 154 files of child sexual abuse and found that no prosecutions were instigated in 90 of them, even though in 23 of the 90 non-prosecutions, there had been admissions of guilt by the accused people.

The present DPP, James Hamilton, is only the second person to hold the office since it was created under the Prosecution of Offences Act 1974. His role, according to the DPP's website, is to "enforce the criminal law on behalf of the people of Ireland".