DUBLIN — Ireland’s justice minister plans to introduce legislation criminalizing possession and distribution of “extreme” pornography, according to a report by the Irish Independent.
Jim O’Callaghan, who heads Ireland’s Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, told the Irish Independent that his department is drafting proposals to outlaw production, distribution and possession of “extreme or violent pornography,” and that he hopes to bring the proposal before the government within the next two months.
O’Callaghan told the paper that members of Ireland’s national police service have advised him there is a “direct link” between online pornography and “serious sexual violence on women,” including cases of “nonfatal strangulation, degrading sexual acts, and coercion.”
“I’m not a person who’s interested in censorship, but I am going to bring forward proposals to criminalize extreme violent pornography,” O’Callaghan told the Irish Independent.
“I think it is necessary to introduce it and start it in order to protect young people, teenage children, young men, and women as well,” O’Callaghan said. “People are getting a distorted view of what human sexuality is about.”
Following in the UK’s Footsteps
As XBIZ reported last month, the U.K.’s recently enacted Crime and Policing Act criminalized depictions of “non-fatal strangulation” as well as sexual content in which adults portray underage characters.
The drive to ban “extreme” pornography in the U.K. was given momentum by the publication, in early 2025, of a government “pornography review” that recommended banning any adult content deemed “degrading, violent and misogynistic.” The talking points used by O’Callaghan and supporters of passing similar laws in Ireland largely mirror those of that review.
Appearing on an Irish podcast titled “Newstalk Breakfast,” Dr. Madeleine Ní Dhálaigh, who serves as vice chair of the Irish Medical Organization’s General Practitioners Committee, claimed, “So, modern pornography, we know that 90% of the scenes show an act of physical aggression and 95% of the time it's directed against the woman who's providing the content.”
Dhálaigh did not cite a source for those statistics.
“The violence in pornography is real,” Dhálaigh argued. “It's acted out by the content providers, but it is very real. That woman is experiencing pain and is being subjected to all forms of degradation and violence ... These violent acts in pornography are informing domestic violence, informing teenage dating violence and informing the sexual scripts of our young people.”
Podcast host Anton Savage noted that, if the figures Dhálaigh cited are correct, the government would have to ban nearly all pornography.
Dhálaigh responded, “Well, I think that this is a conversation we need to have.”
