Gardaí warn that children as young as five are being targeted online for sexual exploitation

Two agencies of An Garda Síochána are warning that even entirely innocuous online posts — put up by a child or his/her parents — can attract exploiters. iStock

Children as young as five are now being targeted online for sexual exploitation by international gangs as senior gardaí urgently implored parents: “Talk to your child”.

The plea comes as gardaí revealed more than 100 child victims of online sexual abuse have been identified in Ireland since the start of 2024.

Those children have been identified amid an ever-evolving landscape of criminal sexual behaviour online where the dangers for children have been heightened and compounded by developments in artificial intelligence.

Detective Chief Superintendent Colm Noonan of the Garda National Protective Services Bureau said: “We would really urge parents to have open conversations with their kids about their experiences online. The tide of content is growing and growing.”

Gardaí said the most disturbing trend is a “rise in sadistic online enticement”, where violent groups exploit children via mainstream messaging platforms, coercing them into acts of self-harm or abuse while reinforcing psychological control.

Det Supt Michael Mullen of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau said: 

Children and teenagers who have an electronic device with uncontrolled access to the online environment need to be aware of the dangers of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, along with the very serious harm that both will cause. 

"And parents need to realise that such behaviour is happening online at an alarming scale.”

The senior gardaí said young people should never presume that who they are interacting with online is who they say they are.

They added that — given that much of the sophisticated sexual abuse crimes taking place online in 2025 are motivated by financial gain — it is becoming ever-more difficult to track and apprehend the people responsible.

Garda National Protective Services Bureau Det Chief Supt Colm Noonan and Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau Det Supt Michael Mullen briefing the media on Friday about ongoing investigations into online child sexual abuse sat Walter Scott House, Dublin. Picture: Sam Boal/Collins

The briefing heard how 73 Irish child victims had been identified and safeguarded in Ireland across the two bureaus over the 12 months of 2024 and a further 39 to date this year.

A further 24 victims have been identified in jurisdictions outside Ireland.

“These are real people, real kids in Irish households that have either been exposed to or involved in child sexual abuse material,” Detective Chief Superintendent Noonan said.

He added that such material can be created or manipulated from the subject’s, or their family members’, own harmless online postings.

He described three specific areas in which generative artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to exploit children:

• Creating sexually-explicit material that depicts children, or manipulates existing images of children to the same end;
• Creating fake accounts where the person being interacted with appears to be a child but is in fact an AI tool enticing the child to behave in certain ways for the purposes of sexual extortion;
• Livestreaming of abuse.

Asked about the age range of exploited children that gardaí encounter in their investigations, Det Chief Supt Noonan said “as young as five, not unusually, unfortunately” adding that abuse often continues across their teens and into adulthood.