There have been almost 5,000 detections of individuals in Ireland downloading or trading in child pornography over the past six months with several people accessing illegal images hundreds of times each month.

An average of 800 computers each month across the country are downloading or trading images of children – including babies – being abused.

Software company TLO, which is based in Florida, has provided the Sunday Tribune with detailed information about the numbers of people involved in the trading of illegal child pornography as well as their locations.

One individual in Dublin was detected 315 times in January downloading or sharing images of the sexual abuse of children. In the same month in Cork, a computer was identified as being involved in the same activity 197 times.

Gardaí are known to be deeply concerned about the levels of trading in Ireland and a detective from the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Investigation Unit recently completed a training seminar in Denmark run by TLO which explained how to use its technology.

This garda will now be able to use the company's software to detect when, and exactly where, people in Ireland are using certain peer-to-peer (P2P) networks to download and trade child pornography. This information will then be used to target individuals with a view to eventually prosecuting the offenders.

The trading of these illegal images between people is free, as on P2P networks all members can download files from each others' computers.

"The technology we provide is just a tool used by law enforcements worldwide to monitor the situation. After we provide them with the data, extensive police work must take place before building cases against people. In a way, what we provide law enforcement agencies with are very good leads. We have provided data to police all over the world that has led to arrests and prosecutions," said Steve Racioppo, TLO's?chief operating officer.

"The gardaí are now involved and we hope that information we provide to them will be useful. The data we provide is people trading and downloading child porn involving children eight years and under. People interested in trading and downloading child porn are seeking each other out on peer-to-peer networks."

The company provided the Sunday Tribune with a snapshot of the situation in Ireland from January until the middle of June.

In January, February and March, more than 1,000 computers across the country each month were downloading or trading child porn images with people online all over the world on peer-to-peer networks. In April, 847 individual computers all over Ireland were detected as being involved in child porn activity. In May, the number dropped to 597.

In the first half of this month, 235 computers were identified by TLO as downloading or trading in child pornography.

The decrease this month can be directly linked to RTE's Prime Time Investigates programme which was aired at the end of May and identified that over 1,000 individual computers downloaded or traded in child porn in a four-week period earlier this year.

Fergus Finlay, chief executive of Barnardos, said it was "astonishing" that people all over Ireland would be accessing child porn hundreds of times each month.

Dr Niall Muldoon of CARI (Children at Risk in Ireland), said the high volume of detections needed to act as a "wake-up call" as to the extent of this problem in Ireland.