Ireland cannot address complaints about violent online porn as it is not illegal

'The advent of the internet has exposed children to pornographic acts that we could scarcely have imagined 30 years ago.'

Complaints about violent online pornography have doubled in the last year yet the internet watchdog cannot act on them because it is not illegal.

Last Thursday, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said “violent adult pornography” is driving much of the increased violence that gardaí are seeing in sexual assaults on women. He said this material is, in effect, “unregulated” and “unpoliced” and easily accessible to anyone with internet.

Mick Moran, chief executive of Hotline.ie, revealed his organisation cannot act on this pornography.

Mr Moran, who spent over 34 years as a police officer fighting child sex abuse, said it is “possible” Ireland might take the step and criminalise such material, pointing out that “extreme” pornography is illegal in Britain.

He said his specific concern is children accessing this extreme adult pornography and either being sexualised themselves or engaging in problematic behaviour towards other children.

Speaking at a meeting of the Policing Authority last week, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris  said violent porn is driving real-life violence against women. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews

In its most recent statistics, Hotline.ie said that even though it has no powers to take down violent adult pornography, it received 102 complaints from the public regarding “extreme adult content” in 2023, compared to 56 in 2022.

“Adult pornography is not part of our remit right now but may be at some point in the future,” Mr Moran told the Irish Examiner.

"Given that ‘extreme’ pornography is illegal in the UK there is a possibility that it will happen here too." 

He said one area where action could be taken in the meantime is having some system of limiting access to adult pornography to adults. He added: 

We certainly should be considering legislation along the lines of the UK Online Safety Act which insists on age verification for pornography sites. 

“This would most likely be a Coimisiún na Meán [the broadcasting regulator] issue, with us taking reports of sites that are not complying.”

He said Hotline.ie is worried about children accessing adult material: “Our concern in relation to it relates more to children and how they are exposed to it or to child sex offenders and how they might use it as part of the grooming process to desensitise targeted kids.

“The advent of the internet has exposed children to pornographic acts that we could scarcely have imagined 30 years ago and there is mounting evidence that this is causing harm or at least badly informing young adults about what a healthy sex life looks like.

“It also results in the sexualisation of children at a very young age which sometimes manifests as problematic behaviour.”

In relation to the complaints they do receive about extreme adult pornography, he said: “Some of the material reported to us is adult in nature and may contain elements of violence or degradation but we do not act in relation to these reports at present.”

Mr Moran pointed out that recent research, called Facing Reality, by Ruth Breslin and Monica O’Connor presented “an evidence base” for the role of pornography in subsequent gender-based violence, which he said also applied to LGBT+ pornography.

The Facing Reality report was conducted by the Sexual Exploitation Research and Policy Institute for Women’s Aid and published last October.

It said that the third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence, called Zero Tolerance and covering the period 2022-2026, commits the Government to "raise awareness of the harm of pornography and of how the sex trade and pornography fuel misogyny and violence".  

The authors of Facing Reality said their report “sets out with clarity the harm which is being committed and the danger it represents”.

It said that “much of what features in the mainstream pornography of today in fact constitutes sexual violence”.

It said this was shaping the sexual behaviour of many pornography consumers, both adults and children in Ireland, to the extent that pornography “actively distorts or even breaks the boundary between sex and sexual violence”.