A disturbing case has emerged from the courts of a 26-year-old man who coerced young girls to send him graphic pictures of themselves. Two of them were just nine years old.

Should tech companies be doing more to protect children from predators?

Jim Daly, Minister of State at the Department of Health, says: "I have a fundamental difficulty with people being able to go online and do as they please."

Jim feels these companies need to look into the possibility of ensuring people can be identified by an online verification code that would match their PPS numbers.

"It's the very least we require to protect our children."

Michel Colaci is a software developer in Clonakilty, West Cork, and co-founder of the internet safety education company immunizeNet. He says that parents are "hugely under-educated" on how to keep their children safe online.

His aim is "to help parents understand technology and use it for protection while being able to guide their kids through the process of growing up in a digital world."

Michel believes one of the reasons the likes of Facebook are not doing more to prevent people abusing their service is that "it's more profitable to focus on marketing and advertising than to focus on protecting people online."

When it comes to restricting the apps and websites that children use, Michel says that often parents need to be prepared to make "tough decisions that their kids are not always going to like."