Shortcomings in the Garda’s Youth Diversion Programme (YDP) — designed to keep at-risk juveniles out of trouble, and the public safer — were revealed last month, when an internal review of the system came to an alarming conclusion: Some 3,500 juveniles responsible for almost 7,900 crimes over an eight-year period starting in 2010 escaped prosecution.

Up to a hundred more searches are expected to be conducted this year in relation to a major investigation into child abuse imagery, garda bosses have said.

Cormac O’Keeffe looks at a Garda initiative to tackle the problem