Galway Bay fm newsroom – A woman is due to be sentenced at Galway Courthouse in the next few minutes after being convicted of beating, starving and neglecting her children .
In January, the woman was found guilty of 29 charges which included pushing her son down a flight of stairs and banging her daughter’s head off a counter.
The children’s Victim Impact Statements will be read out in court this afternoon.
The eldest of the woman s children is now 19.
She gave evidence via video link during the trial and described the abuse and neglect she experienced at the hands of her mother at various locations in the west between 2006 and 2011.
She recalled one incident when she used a bad word and her mother punished her by dragging her into the kitchen by her hair and grabbing her by the throat.
Five of her siblings gave evidence too. They described being beaten with wooden back scratchers, bamboo sticks and leather belts.
Her eldest son said his mother pushed him down the stairs on two occasions. He was hospitalised once after banging his head.
The children were taken into care in 2011 following an unannounced visit by social workers who found them being looked after by two men, one of whom was asleep in one of their beds. The other was drunk.
The 39-year-old was convicted on 29 of 42 charges in January, and her children will soon be given the opportunity to outline how her crimes have affected them.