Thousands of bids to access porn sites at Leinster House

Thousands of attempts to access porn, escort agencies, dating, gambling, and other banned websites have been made on Oireachtas computers in the past four months, the Irish Examiner can reveal.

The bids to log on were made by Leinster House staff, journalists, visitors, and contractors between May and September. The details released under the Freedom of Information Act show 39,839 attempts were made to access banned sites on Dáil and Seanad-linked equipment in four months.

And while Oireachtas officials said up to two thirds of the bids are the result of spam or “pop-ups” adverts — meaning they should not be considered genuine attempts to visit the sites — no such explanation exists for thousands of incidents.