Gardaí investigating a suspected people trafficking ring have found a 12-year-old Nigerian girl at a house in a north Dublin.
The girl has been taken into social care while one man has been charged in Northern Ireland in connection with the cross-Border immigration inquiry.
The 51-year-old man faces six counts of helping unlawful immigration and is to appear before Antrim Magistrates Court on Tuesday morning.
He was arrested along with another man in his late thirties following Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) raids on two houses in Lisburn on Thursday.
The searches led PSNI detectives to contact their counterparts in the Garda's National Immigration Bureau who then launched follow-up searches south of the border.
These included homes in counties Louth, Dublin, Meath and Kildare.
The young Nigerian girl was found at a house in Castleknock. It is believed the girl was being held against her will but there was no initial suggestion that there was any sexual motive for her being held captive.
It is understood the arrests in Northern Ireland related to the suspected facilitation of people being smuggled through the North into the Republic as part of a wider illegal immigration operation.
The second man arrested in Lisburn has been released pending a report for the Public Prosecution Service.
A PSNI spokesman stressed the arrests were not directly connected to the discovery of the Nigerian girl but that she was found as a result of the wider investigation.
“During a search at Castleknock a 12-year-old Nigerian girl was discovered by An Garda Siochana and has been taken into social care in the Republic of Ireland,” he said.
“It should be noted that the charges do not relate to this specific discovery, although the searches were carried out as part of the Police Service of Northern Ireland investigation.”
A Garda spokeswoman confirmed the girl was found and has been taken into the care of the Health Service Executive.
“There have been no arrests (in the Republic) yet. Our investigations are continuing,” she said.