He texted the phone that we had specially bought to get in contact with men we met on the internet. He had been told clearly that 'Davey' was 15 before they met.

His text message said he was wearing black tracksuit bottoms with a stripe on them and a blue hoody.

I stood at the Spire 10 minutes before the appointment as dozens of tourists posed for pictures in the rain, little knowing what was taking place just yards from them. I spotted Paddy immediately. He was about 6'2" and had a hood pulled over his face. He looked at me and nodded but didn't approach me straight away. He was obviously sizing me up.

This reticence didn't last long and he walked over and whispered, "Davey, is it?" We shook hands and he informed me that a third person was coming to join us at 3.30pm.

This was an 18-year-old English man who was "rough" and liked to be rough. I asked Paddy if he met strangers for sex often. "All the time, " he replied. I asked him his age.

He confirmed he was 27 and asked me my age. "I'm 15 years old, " I said.

He was not at all shocked.

"Where will we go?" he asked. I said I had no experience and was new to this type of thing. I asked if he was used to meeting people as young and inexperienced as me.

"Yeah, you'll be ok. I'll see what the English fella wants to do. We usually do it out of doors, up lanes where there are no people. We'll decide when he gets here. You'll be grand with us. It's a bit wet, unfortunately."

Paddy said he arranged for sex on the internet a few times a week and said we had to be careful because the guards would be looking out for us.

"I've never done anything wrong, they don't know me, " I said.

"They know me. There are two policemen across the road and they spotted me earlier on. They know me from being around here."

He said that the Spire is a regular haunt for men arranging to meet other men on the internet.

"Paddy, I'm not interested in having sex with you and your mate, " I told him.

"I'm a journalist. I wanted to meet people like you and see if you would really arrange to meet somebody you know is only 15 and have sex with him. Did you see the story about the lad in Swords this week?"

I asked. He said he did, but again he did not seem shocked at the boy's tender age. "It happens all the time, " he insisted.

"So you're a journalist. That must be interesting, " he said. "So you're not interested. OK then, take care of yourself."

He was not at all surprised or horrified that he had been openly caught arranging to meet what we had led him to believe was an underage boy for sex in the centre of Dublin. One of the text messages sent to Davey's phone