One of the men implicated in the grooming and sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy has worked as an official in a scouts club, it has emerged.
The man has been contacted by gardaí and has been interviewed. Gardaí have also been in contact with Scouting Ireland to examine their records to determine how long and where the man worked for the organisation.
Another suspect, a civil servant, had come to the attention of gardaí before for suspect behaviour of a sexual nature. This man was recorded on Garda files after he was found loitering around public toilets. However, because no criminal charges resulted the information remained "soft intelligence" and could not have been used to remove the man from his position.
A probationary garda has also been implicated in the targeting of the Dublin teenager after he began surfing an international gay website. He is understood to have made available his mobile phone number and was contacted by phone by up to 12 men.
At least two of these men raped the victim before his mother saw text messages on his phone which suggested he was sexually active with a number of men. She went to Coolock Garda station last Wednesday week and made a complaint.
Her son gave a statement to gardaí and an investigation was begun.
Gardaí to date have arrested two men, a truck driver and a language school lecturer who have addresses in north and south county Dublin respectively. The teenager has alleged that at least one rape took place in his family home while his parents were out.
As well as these two arrests, a number of other suspects have been spoken to by gardaí without being arrested.
Garda sources believe that while between eight and 12 men contacted the boy after establishing contact with him on the website, the ongoing investigation has yet to determine what laws they have broken. The garda limited his contact with the boy to text messages.
Others are believed to have begun texting and calling the boy only when the Garda investigation began. It is unclear how many of this group realised the person they were contacting was a minor.
"All of this will be established as we make more progress on the case," said one source.
Gardaí are satisfied at this stage that only two of the men they have spoken to so far had sex with the victim. The Irish Timesunderstands at least one of the men is married with children. All of the suspects are based in Dublin.
