Sex-for-rent complaints set to be recorded as Gardaí work on 'structured mechanism'

Labour senator Laura Harmon campaigning for legislation on sex for rent. Picture: Gareth Chaney

A structured mechanism to record data relating to sex-for-rent arrangements in Ireland is being developed by gardaí.

Justice minister Jim O’Callaghan said that An Garda Síochána has advised him that “work is currently under way to provide a structured mechanism which will allow for the recording of complaints, disclosures, and incidents relating to sex-for-rent arrangements”.

Legislation making it an offence to offer or advertise sex-for-rent arrangements has been in place since September 1. However, despite this, advertisements which appear to have been offering such arrangements persisted online ahead of the beginning of the third-level academic year.

The advertisements offered room-to-rent arrangements to female renters at low prices with the option of discussing “arrangements”. One advertisement which was regularly repeated and which has since been taken down offered accommodation to a “submissive” woman “who would like to trade in return for lodgings”.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice stated: “Offering or advertising accommodation in exchange for sexual activity, or ‘sex for rent’, is a criminal offence.

"Therefore anyone who becomes aware of such activity (including advertising or offering accommodation on that basis) should report it to An Garda Síochána.” 

The introduction of the legislation follows an investigation by the Irish Examiner which found a number of online accommodation advertisements for sex-for-rent arrangements in December 2021.

Subsequently, this newspaper spoke with several women who were offered accommodation at reduced or no rent, with the expectation that sex or bedsharing with the landlord would be part of the arrangement.

All but one were foreign women who had moved to Ireland for either study or work.

An Italian woman interviewed by the Irish Examiner said that trying to find a place to rent in Dublin was “like falling into a dangerous hell”.

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Research published by the Irish Council for International Students (ICOS) last year showed that 5% of female respondents said they had either received an offer to rent a room in Ireland in exchange for sex, or had seen a room that was being advertised in exchange for sex.

A female student from Mexico who took part in the survey said she had posted on social media that she was looking for a room to rent.

She received two responses “from men saying they had a room to rent and asking me what I could offer in exchange".

"One of them directly said that I could sleep with him, he then sent some obscene images.”