Gardaí and Interpol identify Irish child porn users

Gardaí are assisting Interpol with an investigation into three Irish men who attempted to pay for online child pornography.

The men were identified under a sting operation carried out by a Dutch children's charity into child sexual exploitation in the Philippines.

Hans Guyt of the charity says the sting helped them to identify how widespread the problem of online child exploitation.

"The moment we introduced ourselves on the internet in public chat rooms as a ten-year-old girl from the Philippines, we were literally overwhelmed, swamped, with an avalanche of people wanting to contact us."

"But we had to convince them that they indeed were dealing with a ten-year-old girl."

Terres Des Hommes created a cyber version of a 10-year-old girl to trick users into thinking they were watching a child.

Child protection expert, Shane Dunphy, said it will be difficult to prosecute the men, and that they could easily argue they "wandered in" to chat rooms innocently.