Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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1143. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the offences relating to online abuse and harassment which are currently legislated for; the offences she plans to legislate for; her engagement with support organisations on these issues; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [31330/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy may be aware that 'Coco's Law', also referred to as the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act, entered into force on 10 February 2021. It creates two new offences of sending, or threatening to send, intimate images without the consent of the person whose image it is.

The first offence deals with the taking, distribution, publication or threat to distribute intimate images without consent, and with intent to cause harm to the victim and carries a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine and/or seven years’ imprisonment.

The second offence deals with the taking, distribution or publication of intimate images without consent without a requirement that the person intended to cause harm to the victim and carries a maximum penalty of a €5,000 fine and/or 12 months’ imprisonment.

The penalties are high to reflect the level of harm caused to the victim and the legislation rightly provides that it will be irrelevant that a person may have consented to the taking of an image if it is subsequently published or distributed without their consent.

The Act also updates the existing harassment legislation by broadening the scope of the offence of harassment to cover all forms of persistent communications about a person and has increased the penalty from seven to 10 years to reflect the harm that can be caused by the most serious forms of harassment.

The new legislation is intentionally silent about the types of technology that may be used to commit the offences so as to cover all forms of online and offline communications that cause harm to a victim.

Under Dáil standing orders, a post-enactment report reviewing the functioning of the new legislation will be carried out after one year. A Committee Stage amendment was also accepted in the Dáil which requires a review to be carried out within three years of the passing of the legislation (Section 12 of the 2020 Act).

When signing the commencement order for “Coco’s Law” it was announced that an agreement had been reached between my Department, the National Anti-Bullying Research and Resource Centre at DCU, and the Department of Education to establish a ‘Research Observatory on Cyberbullying’ focused on providing up-to-date research, advice and resources related to cyberbullying, cyberhate, and online harassment, and the implementation of Coco’s Law. Funding for the Observatory is being provided by the Department of Justice in memory of Nicole (Coco) Fox.

Funding was also announced for Webwise to update their popular ‘Lockers’ programme, which is an important Junior Cycle resource to include information about Coco’s Law and non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

My Department is currently developing a wider awareness campaign on Coco’s Law and the penalties applicable if someone is convicted of sharing intimate images without consent, and to draw attention to the harm caused to the victim whose intimate image is shared. We intend to communicate our message in a way that will build on our existing ‘No Excuses’ campaign and its key message of not excusing any form of sexual harassment or sexual violence.

It may be of interest to the Deputy to know that in addition to Coco's Law, separate legislation to include provision for an online safety commissioner has been proposed by the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, which published the General Scheme of the Online Safety Media Regulation Bill earlier this year.

The General Scheme of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill contains provisions empowering the proposed Online Safety Commissioner to make online safety codes; assess the compliance of online services with those safety codes; direct online services to make changes to their systems, processes and policies and design and seek to apply financial sanctions to services who fail to comply.

The Deputy may also wish to be aware that Justice Plan 2021 commits to introducing new legislation to deal with hate crime and incitement to hatred, by the end of this year. This commitment gives effect to the Programme for Government commitment to introduce legislation to address those who target victims because of their association with a particular identity characteristic, and to revise and update the Incitement to Hatred Act.

Furthermore, the Government recently approved the General Scheme of the Criminal Justice (Hate Crime) Bill 2021.

The General Scheme was drafted following the publication of the results of a widespread consultation process, which included in-depth consultations with various civil society and community groups, academics and experts and a detailed comparative study of approaches to hate crime in 5 other jurisdictions. The report on that consultation is available at:

Although incitement to hatred is already an offence, experience has shown that it is difficult to prosecute and there have been very few convictions since the introduction of the 1989 Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred .

The Bill will create new, aggravated forms of certain existing criminal offences, where those offences are motivated by prejudice against a protected characteristic. It also proposes new offences of incitement to hatred, which are clearer and simpler than those in the 1989 Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act. These offences cover inciting hatred against a person or persons because they are associated with a protected characteristic, and also disseminating or distributing material inciting hatred.