Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 February 2026
800. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration the number of prosecutions there have been under “Coco’s Law” annually, since its introduction into Irish law in February 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14917/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020, also known as Coco’s Law, came into force in February 2021. The Act criminalises the sharing of, or threatening to share, intimate images without a person’s consent, with or without intent to cause harm to the victim.
The Act also seeks to target other areas of harmful communications by creating a new offence of distributing, publishing, or sending a threatening or grossly offensive communication with intent to cause harm and to extend the current offence of harassment to deal with communications about a person, as well as communications to a person.
Prosecutions are a matter for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), which is entirely independent in its remit. The following statistics have been provided by the ODPP in relation to the number of cases where a decision was made to prosecute under sections 2, 3 or 4* of the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020 since its introduction:
2021 – 8 cases
2022 – 49 cases
2023 – 43 cases
2024 – 53 cases
2025 – 75 cases
2026 (to date) – 12 cases
* Section 2: Distributing, publishing or threatening to distribute or publish intimate image without consent with intent to cause harm or being reckless as to whether harm is caused; Section 3: Recording, distributing or publishing intimate image without consent; and Section 4: Distributing, publishing or sending threatening or grossly offensive communication.
