The operation had been planned with forensic precision and 28-year-old Timothy Cox was quickly pulled away from his computer and handcuffed.

As two policemen dressed in full SWAT gear marched him to a waiting van, the computer experts took over.

Trying not to be overcome by the sickening images before them, one of the detectives posted a note on Cox's website saying he had gone for tea and would be back in half an hour.

Over the next ten days, detectives worked in shifts posing as Cox; by the time they had finished, over 700 people from around the world had accessed his internet site to download images of child pornography, including live sex shows involving infants.

Officers discovered that Cox, or the 'Son of God' as he called himself, had in his possession 75,960 indecent images and dozens of videos showing horrific abuse, including young babies being raped.

He was jailed for an indeterminate amount of time last week for operating what was Britain's biggest-ever paedophile ring. Thirty-five children, 15 of them from the UK, were rescued as part of the police operation.

After investigators traced the IP addresses of the website users they discovered that people from 35 countries had illegally downloaded material. One of those countries was Ireland: four people here had logged on to the ' Kids the Light of Our Lives' website.

Two of these men lived in Northern Ireland and the PSNI are investigating their activities and have arrested them.

The two suspects in the Republic are from Waterford and Dublin.

Detectives from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation arrested a British man living in Waterford nearly two months ago.

The suspect, who has a partner, was detained but denied downloading any illegal material.

His computer has been seized and is being examined at garda headquarters in Phoenix Park. The Dublin man has yet to be arrested but his home has been searched and it is anticipated that he will be held for questioning.

The Cox case was not isolated and online paedophilia is growing in Ireland. In February, two Irish men were arrested after a massive operation in Austria revealed that 2,300 people in 77 countries had been accessing a website showing children as young as five being abused.

There was controversy at the time because police at the Dublin Interpol office failed to realise the seriousness of a circular sent from their Austrian counterparts informing them of the Irish link to the investigation.

This resulted in a six-month delay in investigating the suspects, which led to fears that the men could have destroyed evidence linking them to the website. The two men were arrested and files are being prepared for the DPP.

Over the past five years, more than 250 suspects have been investigated for downloading child pornography. Seven computers were seized in Co Mayo last March on suspicion that they had been used to download illegal images.

Gardai have launched several high-profile operations in recent years. The biggest to date, Operation Amethyst, was in May 2002 when more than 110 searches were carried out in homes, businesses and offices. The homes of a barrister, solicitors, bank managers and the chief executive of a large company were among those searched following a tip-off to gardai from the FBI.

A dedicated paedophile unit has been established within the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and several detectives are investigating child pornography and paedophile activity full-time.

Sources say there are probably several hundred paedophiles in this country actively using the internet to see children being abused. Gardai rely on tip-offs from foreign police. They say there is no evidence that children are being abused here and that no website showing child abuse has ever been found to be run from this country.

However, the head of the Children at Risk in Ireland Foundation has warned that it is only a matter of time before images of Irish children being abused appear on the internet.

"We know from our work that children who come to us for therapy have told us of pictures being taken, " said Mary Flaherty.

The increased prevalence of child pornography on the internet has not gone unnoticed by ordinary computer users and they have been notifying Irish authorities of their concerns.

The website www. hotline. ie, run by the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI), allows members of the public to report illegal websites they have encountered while surfing the web.

When the hotline is informed of illegal sites, particularly those displaying child pornography, it immediately removes the offending material and contacts the gardai. The hotline service exists in 27 countries so there are no boundaries in tackling exploitative sites based abroad.

Last year it received 2,677 reports, an increase of 12% on 2005; 2,125, or 79% of all reports, related to suspected child pornography. Of the total number of reports received, 423 websites were found to have included illegal content, an increase of 10% on the previous year.

None of the 27 hotline countries has so far traced any child pornography sites to Ireland.

Most originate in the USA and eastern Europe.

Experts say there is a direct link between people accessing child pornography and the direct sexual abuse of children. The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children quotes a US study which found that 36% of people who access child pornography abuse children.

Independent research last year by the National Centre for Technology in Education revealed that one in 10 Irish children who arranged to meet someone they first met on the internet experienced physical threats and abuse.

Eight hundred and forty-eight 9 to 16-year-olds were surveyed and a large percentage had found that somebody who claimed to be a child on the internet turned out to be an adult.

Experts are becoming increasingly concerned about the impact of internet sites such as Bebo and YouTube on youngsters. A random trawl of Bebo will show girls, some as young as 14, posing in their underwear and discussing their plans for the weekend in intimate detail, including where and when they are meeting. Some even include mobile phone numbers.

These pages are open for anybody to view and there are fears that predatory paedophiles could be posing on sites such as Bebo in an effort to groom young children for sexual abuse.

Education minister Mary Hanafin recently said she did not believe that Bebo and other social network sites were doing enough to protect children from grooming and cyber-bullying.

A new website, www. watchyourspace. ie, has been established to warn young people of the potential dangers of the internet. It advises children to be aware that, once they upload information such as photos of themselves, they remain online forever. Irish woman Rachel O'Connell was recently appointed by Bebo as chief safety officer.

The worldwide web will remain attractive to paedophiles because of its relative anonymity and secretive websites such as the one operated by Timothy Cox will continue to prosper.