A GARDA CONFERENCE has heard that child sexual exploitation is “spiralling out of control” and officers fear that the problem will worsen and that they won’t have the resources to respond to the crisis.

Speaking at the Garda Representative Association (GRA) annual conference, Damien McCarthy, who represents Dublin’s South Central region, said that there is currently a three-year backlog in processing devices that have been seized from suspected criminals. 

Not only is there a delay in processing these devices, McCarthy said that the cyber crime unit is also “massively understaffed”. 

“We have a very small unit and it needs more people. Management advertised in 2019 to fill vacancies and there are still successful candidates waiting to go into those positions. 

“This particular crime has spiralled out of control. It has increased 6000% in 10 years worldwide. Have we responded as an organisation? No. This is just the tip of the iceberg for now.

“There could be victims that we don’t know about because their images are stuck on a laptop somewhere and we haven’t accessed it. This is how serious this is,” he said.

McCarthy put forward a motion at the GRA conference urging management to set up a child exploitation unit in each of the 31 garda divisions. 

Thousands of cases have also being referred to the gardai from the US also, increasing the workload for the unit, gardaí said. 

The number of cases closed last year by the Garda cyber crime unit saw a sharp increase rising by 29% from 333 to 431 and the increase is due the number of court sittings increasing last year over 2020 when Covid-19 restrictions had a much greater impact on court business.

The cyber crime unit work in the area of child sexual abuse image cases accounts for the largest proportion of its work.

The 212 child sexual abuse images cases accounted for 43% of its new work in 2021.

The 212 child sexual abuse images cases followed 170 in 2021 and already this year, the cyber crime unit has handled 59 new child sexual abuse images investigations.

The Garda Press Office has been contacted for comment.