Gardaí have carried out a number of searches in relation to an Internet-based child pornography ring uncovered by Austrian police last year.
The gardaí were one of 77 police forces around the world alerted to the abuse last August.
However, the communication was missed in Garda Headquarters and only came to light earlier this month.
Last July, the Austrian police were tipped off that a child pornography ring was using computers based in Vienna to send pictures to a server in Russia.
In August, they informed the police forces that they had tracked computer users who accessed the site containing child pornography to their countries. Two users were tracked to Ireland.
Earlier this month gardaí initially denied but later accepted that they had been told by the Austrians.
As well as launching an internal probe to find out why the notice was not seen first time round, gardaí also sought further information from their Austrian counterparts to pursue the criminal investigation.
As a result, it has now emerged that gardaí from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation have carried out at least two searches over the last number days.
It is believed one search was in north Co Dublin and that several computers have been seized and are being examined by technical experts.
No arrests have been made.
