Attorney General has concerns about 'legal soundness' of proposed sex-for-rent laws
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The Department of Justice has said that while it has no objection in principle to a Dáil bill which would make the practice of sex-for-rent illegal, it would have concerns regarding the ‘legal soundness’ of such legislation.
At a committee hearing on Tuesday, assistant secretary at the department Rachel Woods said that while the Attorney General has advised that there is “no difficulty” with the intent of the bill, which has been brought before the Dáil by Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan, issues “need to be addressed” in order to ensure that the legislation “achieves its objectives”.
Ms Woods said that chief among those concerns would be the maximum seven-year prison term mandated under the bill, which she said “risks blurring the lines between a sexual act which takes place in an exploitative situation, as opposed to a non-consensual sexual act”.
“The proposed seven-year penalty is approaching that for a sexual assault,” she said.
"It may be that such an offence is more closely aligned to the offence of purchasing sexual services, which is also one of exploitation targeted at people, predominantly women, who are in vulnerable and sometimes desperate circumstances.”
Mr O’Callaghan told the committee that little is known about the full extent of the problem of sex-for-rent, which sees rental discounts or housing offers given in exchange for sexual favours, and that there has been a lack of research into the matter in Ireland.
He said that there is “some evidence” that migrants with less access to support networks have been targeted for such offers, and that such ads have been specifically targeted at platforms mostly used by migrants.
He admitted that his bill, which seeks to introduce two new criminal offences into Ireland’s statutes for demanding sex in lieu of rent or reduced rent and for advertising for sex in lieu of rent, is “not a panacea”.
"It is not an alternative to addressing wider issues around housing and renting that need to be addressed,” he said.
He said that the “abhorrent” practice of sex-for-rent had been raised in an Irish context by the “excellent work" done by reporter Ann Murphy, who first began covering the issue in December 2020 and who was herself present to give testimony before the committee.
Addressing the committee Ms Murphy said that women she had spoken to regarding sex-for-rent had shown a “reluctance” to go to the gardaí regarding their experiences, for reasons including “that they will not be believed or taken seriously”.
Several Oireachtas representatives addressed the issue during the hearing, with current independent senator and former Minister for Justice Michael McDowell stressing that “something should be done reasonably urgently” about sex-for-rent. He called on the department to conduct research into the “extent of prostitution” in Ireland.
Gavin Elliott, a legal officer with tenant representative organisation Threshold, said that “unfortunately” legislation introduced in England to combat the issue of sex-for-rent “has not been successful in tackling the issue”.
Recent research conducted in England regarding the problem found that nearly 60,000 women were offered housing there in exchange for sexual favours in the 18 months to September 2021.
Mr Elliott said that the poor results seen in England were “in part due to an attempt to prosecute offenders under more general legislation dealing with prostitution offences”.
He said that prosecuting offences in that manner serves to label the victim as “a prostitute”, thus stigmatising them and discouraging the reporting of offences.