{"id":270597,"date":"2026-01-29T18:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T18:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/270597\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T18:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T18:59:11","slug":"rise-in-reports-of-sexually-harmful-behaviour-among-children-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/270597\/","title":{"rendered":"Rise in reports of sexually harmful behaviour among children \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A national service for children affected by sex abuse saw a rise in reports of sexually harmful behaviour among children.<\/p>\n

Of 109 new referrals to Children At Risk in Ireland (Cari) last year, 29 involved children engaging in unsafe or age-inappropriate sexualised behaviour. This is an increase from two of 25 new referrals (8 per cent) in 2024.<\/p>\n

The figures from the charity show 10 per cent of referrals were of children last year involved in sexual abuse and harmful sexual behaviour. <\/p>\n

Cari sees children aged from three years old to 18. The youngest child seen for harmful sexual behaviour was five.<\/p>\n

These trends were \u201cdriven by increased exposure to online pornography and harmful digital content\u201d, said Cari. <\/p>\n

The charity received \u20ac907,400 in Government funding last year. <\/p>\n

Chief executive Emer O\u2019Neill said there was a \u201cclear link between inappropriate sexualised behaviour and the increasing exposure to internet pornography experienced by children today. <\/p>\n

\u201cChildren under 12 cannot process what they see, so they act it out, often with other siblings or peers,\u201d she said. \u201cParents really struggle when dealing with this kind of behaviour, but if it is not tackled effectively, it can just generate further cycles of abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cari, which provides therapeutic interventions to children and families affected by child sex abuse, on Tuesday published a five-year strategic plan to run until 2030. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Significant\u2019 increase in cases of child-on-child online sexual abuse, garda\u00ed sayOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Built around three pillars: enhance access, enable conversations and empower sustainability, the plan aims to strengthen and grow its service. <\/p>\n

Businessman and survivor of child sex abuse Tony Delaney, speaking at the publication, said the plan was \u201cnot ambitious enough\u201d as the charity was underfunded. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis plan should be way more ambitious … This is about an essential service that is required to protect children,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they don\u2019t, people will die into the future. The amount of people who have gone to their graves by suicide who have never told anyone [about their] child sexual abuse is unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Delaney, from Toomevara, Co Tipperary, was sexually abused when aged 11 by a local man when he lived with his grandmother. <\/p>\n

He \u201cparked it\u201d from aged 12, when he \u201cfigured out\u201d how to avoid being alone with his abuser, until he was 39 and almost took his own life. By then he was \u201cdrinking heavily\u201d and relationships had \u201cbroken up\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted help and I needed to find out where that was.\u201d <\/p>\n

He reported the abuse to garda\u00ed. His abuser received a three-year sentence of which he served 18 months, said Mr Delaney. <\/p>\n

Now in his 50s, he is chief executive of SYS Financial services. He keeps \u201cgoing back to how I struggled all my life and how it was down to sexual abuse … The impact it has had is unbelievable\u201d. <\/p>\n

He called for greater funding for services like Cari from Government, the public and business community.<\/p>\n

A 24-hour Rape Crisis helpline can be reached at: 1800 77 8888.<\/p>\n

This article was amended on January 29th, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A national service for children affected by sex abuse saw a rise in reports of sexually harmful behaviour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9691,1523,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-270597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-department-of-justice","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}