The importance of communicating with children about their behaviour online has been stressed after a Dublin man was caged for coercing girls as young as nine into sending him sexually explicit pictures and videos of themselves.

Matthew Horan from St John's Crescent in Clondalkin has been jailed for nine-and-a-half years, with the final two years suspended earlier today.

The 26-year-old pervert used Snapchat, Instagram, and Kik to ask young girls to send him sexually explicit videos and pictures.

Speaking to RTE Radio 1, Grainia Long, chief executive of ISPCC said: "It is a really shocking case, there is no question about that.

"And what I would say to parents is - I cannot stress the importance of talking with children and most importantly listening to children and young children in terms of their behaviour online.

"In terms of what they do online, and many ways this is no different than any other form of parenting.

"Parents will have to come to their own conclusions about the amount of time children spend online, about the age at which they are given devices, about the way in which and who they're allowed to speak to online."

She has said that parents need to make a plan of how they want their children to access the internet.

Grainia continued: "So, I think all parents now need to step back, and I really mean this, this weekend, if you haven't done this already, figure out what is your child using? Whether it's a phone or a tablet. What controls do you have in place?

"Both in terms of controls at home, through your own internet service provider and controls on the tablet. Sit down with your child, and have that conversation with them.

"And if boundaries and rules have not been set, per child - and it needs to be different depending on the age of that child - I think parents and guardians, and anybody now with children, if they haven't been doing that then they need to be doing that.

"And what I will also say - we work very closely with a whole range of organisations, both private sector and commercial companies and so on - and I haven't met one that doesn't say the parents come into our shops who have bought handheld devices come in after Christmas and want to ask any of our staff to help to talk them through controls, then they should do that.

"We need to spend time now thinking - how does the law need to be strengthened? We need to give the State as much opportunity to secure opposition. So if anything positive comes from today, it's that there has been a prosecution."