Yesterday, at the media committee, we had testimony from Gráinne Seoige in relation to her experiences during the general election and subsequently. It was harrowing and I thank her for coming forward. We have all heard of many other cases of what has happened to many people, mostly women, in regard to AI tools and social media companies. In fact, I would call them publishers. They are not platforms; they are actually e-commerce companies. They make money and this is how they make money. We need to think about how we are going to deal with this. People have come to me and to many others in this Chamber as well. We need robust legislation. The simple fact of the matter is that technology is moving so fast, it is very difficult for any Legislature, including us, to keep up. We in the Labour Party believe there is a lacuna in the law, particularly regarding how AI- or computer-generated sexualised images of adults are being created and then distributed. We have decided as a party we need to bring in legislation to deal with this. Today, I am publishing the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences (Amendment) Bill 2026. It is basically an update to Coco's Law, which our party brought forward and which a Minister sitting opposite finally got through the Oireachtas. It provides amendments to Coco's Law to change the definition of intimate images to include AI- or computer-generated images. It also creates a new offence of creating such an image of a person without the consent of that person. Third, and crucially, borrowing from law on child sexual abuse, it makes it an offence to knowingly facilitate the generation of such images for the purposes of publication or sharing. This is critical legislation. It will deal with the e-commerce companies as publishers. Yesterday, the testimony was that when Gráinne Seoige went to the Garda, at the end of all the chasing, gardaí came up against an individual who would not give over their phone. Ms Seoige would have had to look for a court order. How long was that going to take and was it practical? Ultimately, this needs to be dealt with at publisher-e-commerce company level. This legislation deals with the individual but it also deals with the company. I do not care whether the Government takes this Bill and changes it, improves it or whatever. I am calling on it to engage with the legislation. We do not have time for this to go on and on. I ask that in the coming weeks, working collectively with us and whomever else wants to be involved, we bring into law a change to deal with this lacuna and ensure the publishers - the e-commerce companies - will be dealt with by the law for facilitating such behaviour.

Sentiment score: 0.04

I thank the Tánaiste. I am worried when I hear him talk about the Irish European Presidency. That is five months away but we do not have five weeks. He mentioned the volume of cases. How many will end up going to the very end to a prosecution? We have a situation whereby if we do not bring in legislation, this continuous sexualisation without their consent of women and men and the sharing of those images will continue and will not be prosecuted, unless we act now. That is a fact. That is why we are bringing this forward. It does not have to be our Bill but ultimately if we do not deal with this in a timely manner people are going to end up suffering. We were given evidence yesterday that since she went forward the amount of times this image has been shared has multiplied. We in the Labour Party are bringing forward this Bill to deal with this once and for all. We cannot have a situation where An Garda Síochána is going around the country trying to chase mobile phones it cannot get its hands on. It is not resource-practical. We need to cut it out at the e-commerce publisher level and this Bill does that. I ask the Government to please work with us to ensure it can be brought in in the coming weeks. I do not care if the Government brings it in or I do but somebody must bring it in.

Sentiment score: 0.02