Men who view child pornography online often suffer from low self-esteem and struggle to live up to societal views of what it is to be male, according to research to be presented at a major conference on the subject next week.

Dr Yvonne Quinn, a clinical psychologist specialising in adolescent mental health at St James's Hospital in Dublin, studied nine men aged 24-61 who had engaged in this type of behaviour with a view to examining their experience of intimate relationships.

She found they frequently had a poor sense of self, suffered from insecurities over their sexuality and had difficulty trusting others.

They also engaged in a denial of their relationship difficulties and frequently lived with sexual dissatisfaction.

Many also had a history of pornography use and saw it as a way of escaping reality, while also suppressing their emotions associated with vulnerability.

Quinn told the Sunday Tribune there was a real need for further research to examine the reasons why the issues identified in her study, which was undertaken as part of her doctoral research at Trinity College Dublin, led the men to express this through viewing child pornography.

"The internet, because of its very nature, makes access to this type of material more available than ever before," she said. "The worrying thing for me is that there has been an increase in offences of this type."

Quinn will present her findings at a conference organised by the Children at Risk in Ireland (Cari) Foundation, entitled Internet Realities – Safeguarding our Children.

A number of Irish and international experts in the area are involved, as well as the minister for children, Barry Andrews. It takes place at the Carlton Hotel in Dublin airport this Friday.

Last week, Paul Durrant of the Internet Service Providers' Association of Ireland, warned that the internet is so vast "neither the inter­net industry nor law enforcement can be expected to know the whereabouts of illegal content un­less it is brought to their attention." His comments came after it emerged an anonymous complaint in Ireland to the ISPAI's Hotline.ie service had led to the collapse of a network of child sex abuse websites registered in Australia.

Hotline.ie analysts confirmed the images were illegal under Irish law and found the site was part of a network of related sites. All contained illegal images of children being sexually abused.