Rarely do you come across someone who utterly defies the description of "mother". Someone who is so far removed from the nurturing, loving care that mothering implies that it's hard to think of a name for her.

"Evil Bitch" is what one of her daughters calls her -- and it's as good as any.

Jailed yesterday for eight years (only one for each of her eight children) for a litany of abuse, neglect and the ruination of all of their lives, we can only look on aghast at what this family had become.

But in jailing her, it's easy to sit the blame firmly on her shoulders. However, isn't every neighbour, teacher, doctor, social worker and garda they ever came across culpable in some way too?

How could you pass a child, mangled, beaten, unfed and with hardly any clothes, covered so badly in lice that they're crawling down their face, without stepping in? Why did this go on in isolation for so long?

Well of course, it didn't. The "family" -- and let's put them in inverted commas so as not to taint the rest of us -- first came to HSE attention in 2000.

Between then and 2009 the abuses that occurred to those children were so heinous that they would quite simply, be impossible to miss. If we're shocked at some of the Cloyne abuses being so recent, well, here's a case that was still ongoing right up to the mother's arrest.

We are told that the now inevitable HSE "investigation" will focus on "what steps were taken to protect the children". Can I circumvent an awful lot of time and money now: the answer is None.

Incredible

Even Judge Raymond Groarke, hearing the case, said he "found it incredible that such a series of inactions could go on for such a long period of time with little or no outside intervention". Indeed.

There'll now be some long-winded report which won't name anybody or hold anybody to account which will sit indefinitely on a shelf.

Part of the reason, I suspect, is that the family were Travellers. So let's get the elephant out of the room on that score.

The rest of us don't like to 'Get Involved'. We say this because, despite all the PC-ness and anti-discrimination laws, nomadic Travellers, as this family were, do not mix with settled people and vice versa. Some of the children went to some schools some of the time -- in itself a crime. The State was happily handing over children's allowance without ever checking (a) the children existed, (b) were cared for or (c) in school -- which is a legal requirement.

You see, it treats Travellers differently too. If you or I didn't send eight children to school, we'd have a social worker on our doorstep after 20 days -- by law.

Travelling communities are normally very close. Neighbours look after neighbours, they share everything and inter-marry, so that many stay related to each other for life. Not this family. They were different from Travellers and different from the rest of society. Therefore the State had MORE of a duty toward them, not less.

They didn't have the social structures that others have.

Addressing one daughter yesterday, Judge Groarke said: "Your mother cannot harm you and your siblings again."

Sorry, judge, but it's way too late for that sentiment.

These children will be harmed for the rest of their lives.

- Sinead Ryan