The Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald says the government has a 'huge amount' of work to do to tackle paedophile networks who abuse photos posted by children on Facebook.

Ms Fitzgerald made the comments at the launch of the annual report of the Press Council - which also raised concerns about the use of such images by the media.

She says the coalition is 'constantly' working on how to tackle the abuse of young people's photos, and new legislation could be needed.

Law enforcement agencies around the world have long voiced concerns about predators stealing photos from childrens' social media accounts - often using them to pose as other children - in a method commonly known as catfishing.

Justice Minister Fitzgerald says the abuse of children's social media images is now an issue here in Ireland, and that it has distressed many victims.

Minors are now sharing more photos of themselves than at any stage before in modern times on sites like Facebook, Instagram and on apps like Snapchat.

The minister says helping to protect their images could require legislation.

The comments came at the launch of the Press Council report for 2014 - which raised its own concerns about how the media uses online images for news stories.

Press Ombudsman Peter Feeney says the papers and news sites should think twice before publishing images obtained on Facebook.

He says it can be a significant invasion of privacy.