A Co Roscommon mother-of-six has been to sentenced seven years in prison after pleading guilty to incest, sexual assault and neglect of her children.

At Roscommon Circuit Court today, Judge Miriam Reynolds said she would have given the 40-year-old woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, a life sentence had she been a man.

However, Judge Reynolds said she was restricted by the terms of 1908 legal act, which carries a maximum seven-year sentence for incest cases involving women.

The woman had pleaded guilty to two counts of incest committed in June 2004 and on a date unknown between July and October 2004.

She had also pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual abuse against a son on the same dates and to neglecting and ill treating each of her six children from 1998 to 2004 .

The court yesterday heard details about the plight of the six children who, despite coming to the notice of social workers in 1996, were not into taken into care until 2004.

One of the children was sexually abused by his mother, while all of the family were forced to live in filthy conditions without sufficient food, clothing or heating.

Judge Reynolds asked why eight years elapsed during which social workers and home helps regularly visited the home before the children were removed from "what seems to have been an awful household".

Social workers believe that the mother received support from "a Catholic right-wing organisation" when she got a High Court injunction in 2000 to stop the children from being placed in the care of relatives.