The Dáil has been urged to introduce a ban on what has been termed “strangulation porn”, reports RTE.
Sinn Féin TD Máire Devine stated that ending violence against women necessitates a total overhaul in societal attitudes and cultural norms.
She referenced recent research indicating that young individuals are showing up in emergency rooms suffering from strokes, seizures, and brain damage due to behaviors copied from extreme strangulation pornography, reports RTE.
“It is free, it is heavily promoted and is easily accessible online by anybody with a connected device. There is no truly safe way to strangle somebody. Videos on how to ‘breath play’ safely – how innocuous that sounds – are being normalised, so we need hard hitting messages to reach our men and boys who start accessing porn by the age of 11,” reports RTE.
The statements were made during a Dáil debate on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, with survivors present in the public gallery.
Ms Devine highlighted a troubling trend, noting a fivefold rise in sexual strangulation over the past ten years. She attributed this to the mainstreaming of such acts through pornographic content, reports RTE.
“Such horrific depictions of extreme aggression effectively become our people’s sex education … Tragically easy access to violent porn is grooming our boys into becoming unwitting sexual perpetrators. Girls curious about sex believe that strangulation is a part of intimacy to which they must submit,” reports RTE.
She argued that it must be made clear that society does not accept this kind of behavior.
Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan said he found it troubling that sexual practices might be influenced by what he described as “weird” pornography.
He expressed uncertainty over whether legal measures or criminal sanctions were the appropriate solution, r r
However, he stressed that women and girls need to be aware that certain behaviors being encouraged by men and boys—based on online content—are not considered normal.
Labour TD Rob O’Donoghue warned that Ireland is in the midst of a gender-based violence crisis, reports RTE.
He appealed for an immediate and well-resourced response across multiple departments, including “Housing and Justice to Education and Social Protection.”
He also called for domestic abuse survivors to be prioritised for housing, noting that many women leaving shelters end up in emergency accommodation, reports RTE.
Fine Gael TD Shane Moynihan said the extent of domestic abuse became clear after Covid restrictions ended, revealing that many women had been trapped with abusive partners.
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said that violent porn is reshaping how people view sex and distorting healthy relationship dynamics, which is contributing to both mental and physical health problems.
He said he had previously introduced a Bill aimed at preventing young children from accessing explicit pornography, but no action had been taken by the Government, reports RTE.
Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan has provided details on how a new domestic violence register is intended to operate.
Speaking during the Dáil session on domestic violence, the Minister explained that the register would make public the names of individuals convicted on indictment of specific crimes—such as murder, manslaughter, or serious assault—against a current or former intimate partner. These would be included in court judgments outlining the penalties given, reports RTE.
He said the decisions would be listed in a dedicated domestic violence judgments register on the Court Service website, but that judges would still have the authority to decide whether the judgment should be made public.
He said this would be “an important safeguard” for the victim because their consent will also be required before such information is published and available to the wider public, reports RTE.
“This, it is hoped will act not only to provide information to intimate partners of those individuals who could pose a risk to their partners safety, as was the case with the shocking and tragic death of Jennie Poole; it should also act as a deterrent to individuals from carrying out such crimes in the future. Justice is required to be administered in public,” he said, reports RTE.
Following what he described as “extensive engagement” with officials the Department of Justice, Deputy Paul McAuliffe and Senator Fiona O’Loughlin, the Attorney General’s Office and Mr Jason Poole, the brother of Jennie Poole – who he said was instrumental in the proposal – he expressed hope it would be known as “Jennie’s Law”, reports RTE.
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