Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, the Minister, Deputy Harris, launched a significant and important public awareness campaign through all national media etc. to make people aware that the threat to share body images of another individual, no matter what their relationship is, is criminal and wrong. It is a crime. It is a crime if somebody threatens to do it. We all know that under Coco’s Law, the actual sharing of intimate images is correctly a punishable crime. However, it may not be as commonly known that the threat to do so is also a crime. Therefore, the Minister, Deputy Harris, launched that campaign yesterday. We in the Seanad should note it. I would like to hear the Leader respond on it. We should be at the vanguard in the important campaign of telling people, through whatever media might pick this up, that it is unambiguously the case that any threat to share personal body images of another individual is criminal and wrong across all criteria. I ask the Leader to respond on that. I welcome the initiative by the Minister, Deputy Harris. I hope it will impact and that, coupled with Coco’s Law, which is the criminalisation of sharing imagines, this will be a further strengthening in that area. It can be for monetary gain or any other sinister purpose. It can be from some perverse kind of voyeurism. Whatever it is, it is reprehensible and criminal. It is important that we are supporting a campaign to make people aware of its criminality.