Junior Minister at the Department of Justice Mr Willie O'Dea is to raise concerns with Garda management about the handling of Garda informants who are also suspected of serious crime themselves.
This follows claims in a Sunday newspaper that two Garda informants were also operating a nationwide prostitution ring.
"If that is the case, then I'd be seriously concerned," Mr O'Dea told The Irish Times yesterday.
"Gardaí need access to information, and it is an essential part of police work. But you can't allow people to break the law to that extent," Mr O'Dea said.
"If the story is accurate, this is very serious crime, organised prostitution on a huge scale, involving human trafficking as well.
"If this was allowed to go on, then it compromises the whole area of proper policing," the Minister said.
"As a Minister in the Department of Justice, and as a local TD, I will be raising this immediately with Garda management."
Mr O'Dea made his comments following reports in the Sunday World that two men operating a network of brothels in Limerick, Waterford, Athlone, Galway and Kerry were senior informants.
The centre of the two men's operation, an apartment in Limerick city, was searched by gardaí last weekend.
They found 20 mobile telephones, paperwork relating to 25 women, rules for call-girls, and rates of pay.
The raid followed a four-week surveillance operation by the Sunday World, which said it passed the details on to gardaí.
According to the newspaper, confidential information passed on to gardaí also made its way to one of the two suspects.
The paper claimed the information had been passed on by gardaí not directly involved in the investigation.
According to the newspaper, the two suspects had been Garda agents since 1999, one of them acting as an insider on a major drugs sting.
The other suspect provided the information to gardaí that led to the arrest and conviction of a garda who tried to solicit a nine-year-old girl from a brothel.