‘Gardaí need more powers to tackle online child abuse’

Gardaí need greater powers to protect children from online predators including the ability to obtain data from companies such as Facebook and Microsoft.

This is the recommendation of Dr Geoffrey Shannon, the Government’s special rapporteur on child protection, who delivered his 10th annual report yesterday.

He made a number of child protection recommendations relating to cybercrime, sexual abuse, grooming for criminal activity, and housing.