One in 10 Irish children who arranged to meet someone they first met on the internet experienced physical threats and abuse, according to a major new survey by the Department of Education.
In all the cases of physical and verbal abuse reported in the survey of internet usage among 848 nine- to 16-year-olds, the person who introduced himself or herself as a child turned out to be an adult. One in 10 young people said the person they met tried to hurt them.
Following recent controversies over chat rooms the survey found a small increase in the number of children that have visited "hateful websites", with one in five receiving "unwanted sexual comments".
The results of the National Centre for Technology in Education survey were last night described by the Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, as "very worrying".
She said it was important for parents to realise that allowing children unregulated access to chat rooms and other social networks can have very dangerous consequences and advised young people to be cautious about the level of personal details and images which they upload onto their web pages.
"This survey contains a wealth of information about how our young people are using all forms of modern technology to access the internet and communicate through it. Worryingly though, it seems very often that parents are not fully aware of the hidden dangers that are part the emergence of these new technologies," she said.
The survey found that one in 15 children had met in real life someone that they first met on the internet, representing an increase from one in 22 in 2003. Almost 30 per cent said they had encountered someone new online who asked for information such as their photo, phone number, street address or school name, representing an increase of 19 per cent on a similar survey two years ago.
In a reflection of the growing popularity of the internet, a quarter of all children used the internet at home every day, 91 per cent said they owned a PC at home, while 33 per cent had a computer in their bedrooms. One in 10 used instant messaging at home every day or almost every day.
The survey follows the arrest in the last few days of a suspected internet paedophile in Canada, Mark Gary Bedford (21), who is accused of tricking young girls aged between nine and 15 into removing their clothes or performing sex acts over a webcam.