Gardaí are assisting Interpol with an investigation into the use of online child pornography, after a sting exposed three Irish users.

The men were identified under a sting operation carried out by a Dutch children's charity which has worked with victims of child sexual exploitation in the Philippines for over a decade.

Two of the suspects are believed to be Fathers themselves, but the charity says they have evidence of them attempting to pay a young girl to perform sexual acts in front of a web camera. Terre des Hommes claims to have photographs of the users, as well as their Skype accounts in many instances, and their personal details.

Terres Des Hommes created a cyber version of a 10-year-old girl to trick users into thinking they were watching a child.

Hans Guyt, Director of Campaign at Terre des Hommes told Newstalk's Pat Kenny show the sting was designed to expose the scale of the problem, which they were surprised to discover involved very 'ordinary' family men: 

Mr Guyt says Terre des Hommes decided to take the action after noticing about 18 months ago that child prostitutes were disappearing from their usual hangouts - they were moving inside to internet cafés in greater numbers, many of them forced to participate in sexual acts in front of web cams at the insistence of their poverty-stricken parents.

The charity has also stressed that the Sweetie avatar they built was only ever live for a couple of minutes as they didn't want child pornography users to take images of her, even though she wasn't real.

Child protection expert, Shane Dunphy, told Pat Kenny it will be difficult to prosecute the men: