Mr. Paul Maguire:

On average, we found that 500 to 600 women - the figure varied from week to week - would move from one location to another across the country. We then looked at all of the movements over a much longer period to see if there was an element of organisation within these movements. It was amazing to see that a number used in one town would be used in another and that almost a similar number would move in the reverse direction. Some of the women concerned might have had two or three profiles such that when they moved they took their profiles with them. The number could have been slightly smaller, but the fact is that there were significant similarities in the move from A to B and B to A in any instance across any town or city. In the immediate aftermath of the showing of the television programme the number of individual profiles advertised on the Internet actually reduced, but in advance of today's meeting we revisited the website for a couple of days and the number is higher now; it is possibly closer to the number the superintendent quoted - 800 profiles which are advertised on a daily basis.

Deputy Finian McGrath asked if I had spoken to any of the women involved. We spoke to a large number of women who were involved in prostitution at different stages, some of whom had only recently become involved. Some had been involved for a number of years, while others had just got out of it. It depends very much on to whom one is speaking. If one speaks to foreign nationals, I would say they were duped into it. One case that comes to mind is that of a person who thought she was coming to Ireland to work as a hairdresser, but when she and others arrived here, their papers were taken from them and they were put into an apartment on the afternoon of their arrival and told it was prostitution. In other cases, Irish nationals were forced into prostitution. I know that following the programme people commented on social media sites and women said they had got involved in prostitution of their own free will, were enjoying it and making money out of it.

I spent over one year working on this issue and I could not find somebody who would say that to us.