Mr. Declan Daly:

The Deputy is correct that education is vital so that children are aware of the dangers. That is why we have worked so hard and put so much of our effort into that. We have given several lectures and talks. I recently gave one to prospective primary school teachers in St Patrick's College. It is difficult to go into classrooms because the children are very young. We are certainly very open to assisting any educational entity. We put a lot of work into sports clubs through Sport Ireland and the GAA in particular. We have given talks to a number of clubs so that their safeguarding officers are fully aware of the dangers on the Internet and that they can recognise cyberbullying and other offences.

The Deputy mentioned training in Templemore. Let me split that into two. As well as the academic training on legislation and procedures they get from Garda College staff, colleagues from my office attend to give practical guidance over a two-day period to all students and probationers. They also get that practitioner training that gives them information that is grounded and current. As part of the roll-out of divisional protective services units in February 2018 we have modular training involving about seven or eight modules. The next module on that training is specifically designed for online child abuse. We will bring in our own experts. Dr. Shannon has agreed to assist us with that. We will have a mixture of our academic trainers, our practitioners and outside stakeholders to ensure have a full and valued course. That is for the participants in the divisional protective service training.

The Deputy asked about the challenges. One of our big concerns relates to self-taken images. We work very closely with other NGOs, including the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. We have had very close relationships with it in trying to combat that.

As the Internet is borderless, one of the challenges is gathering evidence from outside the jurisdiction. We have the mutual legal assistance treaty which helps us in that, but it can sometimes be very slow. Our interaction with other police forces is very important in gathering that information.

The third challenge probably relates to peer-to-peer information sharing. Those are the three challenges that jump to mind straightaway.