I acknowledge Sinn Féin for bringing forward this welcome Bill. I will support it because it responds to a harm that is no longer hypothetical and no longer something we can say the law has time to catch up with. Only today, Ireland's Online Safety Commissioner said she was "horrified" by what she saw when testing the AI system Grok. She was horrified that it could generate sexualised, degrading images of people who never consented and never could consent. That is not a campaign group talking. This is the State's own regulator warning us that the technology is already ahead of the law that is supposed to protect us from it. Coco's Law was landmark legislation. It mattered. It helped victims, but it was written for a world where abuse followed an image that already existed. What we are dealing with now is different. We are dealing with abuse that begins with a fabrication. A person does not need to take to take a photo, access your phone or deceive you into trust. They simply need your face. That changes everything. The harm is the same. The shame they seek to impose upon a victim is the same. The fear is the same. The consequences remain the same - jobs potentially lost and relationships potentially damaged. People are still silenced but the scale, speed and accessibility of the abuse has exploded. This Bill matters because it names that reality very clearly. It says that an intimate image is not just something captured by a camera. It can be digitally generated, it can be artificial, and it can and will destroy someone's life. It also does something important and overdue. It treats the act of generating this material without consent as part of the wrongdoing, not just from the moment it is shared. This is essential if we want prevention, rather than permanent clean-up after the damage is done. The Bill extends the time limits for bringing cases forward. That matters too. Victims do not report in a neat legal timeframe; they report when they are safe enough, strong enough or when the threat finally becomes unbearable. The law should reflect that reality, not punish people for surviving it. I want to say this clearly. Online abuse is not just an unfortunate side-effect of public life; it is a deliberate tactic. It is gendered, sexualised and designed to intimidate people out of participation. If we keep telling people, especially women and minorities, that this is just the cost of being visible, we are complicit in the narrowing of who gets to speak and lead. Ireland hosts many of these platforms that profit from this content travelling fast and far. We cannot keep outsourcing responsibility while victims are left chasing take-downs that come too late and often not at all. The Social Democrats will support this Bill but I legislation alone is not enough. We need Garda capacity, fast, enforceable take-down systems and real consequences for those facilitating this abuse at scale. France has recently shown us the way in that regard. When our Online Safety Commissioner tells us she is horrified by what these tools can already do, the response of Dáil Éireann cannot be just caution or delay. The Bill is a necessary step. I acknowledge those who brought it forward. I hope the State will enact it at great speed.

Sentiment score: -0.12