The Irish Film Classification Office (Ifco) has launched a new scheme that allows parents to check the content of films before this children buy or rent it on DVD.

The site will describe the contents of the film through four categories: drugs, sexual content/nudity, violence and use of offensive language. The film is given a rating of: none, mild, moderate or strong for each of the four categories.

A brief narrative description of the nature of any content which falls into the above categories and might be considered offensive is then given.

The service, which is already available for films which have had a cinema release, deals with the differences in classification which can arise when director’s cuts of films are released on DVD, or when extras such as out-takes or interviews contain more explicit content than the initial cinema film.