Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am confident I am not the only Deputy who has seen the reports and been contacted with great concern about the sharing of online images of women and girls. More and more information is emerging about that. We have not seen it to verify it yet. However, the practice of publishing intimate images without consent is a major problem in Ireland today. The effect on the victim is one of complete powerlessness, humiliation and indeed of permanency to them and their perception of their reputation. It is an aggressive act and an assault on their person, even if there is no visible scar.

I am proud to be a member of a justice committee having the privilege to work on Deputy Howlin's online harassment Bill, which makes this behaviour a specific criminal offence. It is welcome, but some of this behaviour, that of sending unwanted intimate images, is already harassment under the criminal law and capable of being prosecuted already. In those cases, what we need to see is the immediate co-operation of social media and telecommunications providers, not the delay of two or six months where gardaí prosecuting cases request information, as occurred in a case with which I am very familiar.

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