GPs should consider advocating structured and intensive treatment programmes for convicted sex offenders, outgoing AGP Chairman, Kilkenny GP, Dr Pat Crowley, told the AGM.

"We have all had to deal with the fallout of all sorts of sexual crimes; there is a large prison population of sexual offenders and it is something we tend to put to the back of our minds," he said.

He said the medical Profession should look at 'advocating treatment programmes', adding that the GPs were informed by the Garda when a sex offenders comes to live in their area.

He said there was a lot of hysteria generated by the media, much of it inaccurate, and added GPs tended not to grasp the facts about sex crimes which have "unfortunately become all too common".

Galway GP, Dr Seaghán Ua Conchubhair, told the meeting he doubted whether sex offenders could be cured at all. Thurles GP, Dr Michael Daly, said many GPs believed mandatory reporting of sexual abuse was a 'very blunt type of weapon' because families may very often not be ready to face it. The GPs were commenting on research by Ms Jeanine De Volder, a psychologist researching convicted sex offenders in Irish prisons for the Government, that showed degrees of denial of sexual offences varied greatly and most sex offenders did not receive treatment.

Ms De Volder warned the AGM: "The deeper a sexual offender stays in denial, the greater the risk of reoffending. If they do not think they did anything wrong, they will do it (reoffend) again."

She said treatment did cost money but had to be done, as research abroad indicated it worked, although she said her current study was aimed at seeing whether such treatment worked in Ireland.

She said all men serving sentences for sexual crimes will be released from prison eventually: 58 were released in Ireland last year, and 78 offenders were due to be released this year, she said.

Most of those released will have received no treatment. Ms De Volder sais she and her colleagues repicated an English study of offenders, interviewing 86 sex offenders in Ireland.

She said around 69 per cent of offenders were abused as children. Three recognisable groups of denial emerged from the research, as did a fourth group who completely denied the offence.

She said proper services for the whole family structure were needed to support mandatory reporting.

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