A Tipperary native says the number of people prosecuted for possessing child sexual exploitation material, has increased almost four-fold in the past decade.
The DPP decided to prosecute 100 people for the crime last year – the highest in at least 13 years.
According to freedom of information files, the figure was 15 in 2009 and 28 in 2012.
Noeline Blackwell, who is CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, says international co-operation is key to finding those responsible:
“ Our Gardaí link to other police forces across Europe and across the world and very often these images are coming from people who as an industry are selling child sexual abuse images and they are selling them onto people in various countries where the police in one country find them they are alerting those who are accepting those images in other countries.”
“ the whole area actually of online and physical child sexual abuse is very often international, it is very lucrative trade for some criminals so that co-operation between Gardaí and other police forces is often a most important way of reducing it or stopping it.”
