The Government has established a new watchdog to monitor illegal activity and child pornography on the internet.
The Office for Internet Safety will be part of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and will monitor compliance with internet regulations.
It will operate an executive office charged with combating online crime and a telephone hotline to report illegal activity.
It will also have responsibility for driving safety campaigns and raising awareness about dealing with the dangers of the internet. The office will work alongside a newly established Internet Safety Advisory Council which will supersede the Internet Advisory Board.
Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan said the measures were needed to catch up with the advancing technologies used by criminals on the internet.
"Those who misuse the internet are highly sophisticated and technically astute, and we must continually and pro-actively examine the effectiveness of our defences," he said. "I am particularly concerned about the need to protect our children from the pernicious activities of those who would use the internet to target them for sexual exploitation."
"Concern remains high about the appropriateness of certain material which is easily accessible on the internet, with particular concern about child pornography and the use of 'grooming' to target children," he said.
Yesterday, a Dublin-based internet monitoring service said its members are passing an average of 9,600 confirmed reports of child pornography on to police every month.
The International Association of Internet Hotlines (Inhope) represents hotlines in 25 countries where members of the public can ring up to complain about the contents of websites.
Inhope, based in Sandyford, said that between September 2004 and December 2006, its network processed 1.9 million reports of illegal activity on the internet. Of those, 20,000 a month had illegal or harmful content, and almost half of those contained child pornography.