A six-year-old boy from Co Tipperary has been taken into the care of the Child and Family Agency following a Europol investigation into child pornography across Europe.
The move follows the granting of an emergency care order to gardaí and social workers to take the boy away from the adults he was living with and allow an urgent medical examination.
The order was made at a district court hearing in Co Tipperary last week.
A social worker with the Child and Family Agency told the court gardaí contacted her office on Monday, March 24th, to inform them a house would be searched due to concerns that a child living in the house may have suffered sexual abuse.
There was video footage of the abuse online.
The investigation was prompted by a communication about the suspected abuse from Europol to the Garda Paedophile Investigations Unit in December 2014.
Investigating officers found an internet provider address that was traced to a house in Tipperary.
On foot of a search warrant gardaí and social workers then searched the house and identified a boy living there as the same as in the online video and images and the boy was taken into care.
Social workers met gardaí and accompanied them to the house and the boy was taken into their care.
Detectives who had examined the online images and were involved in the investigation from the start, identified that the boy in the house was also the child in the images and online footage.
A number of items in the house were clearly identified from the online images, including “implements and blankets.”
The court heard gardaí believed there was an immediate risk to the child and he was immediately taken into care and placed in foster care.