IN 2016, at the age of 19, Limerick woman, Megan Sims, was the victim of image-based sexual abuse, formerly referred to as “revenge porn”.
Her pictures were shared from her OnlyFans page without her consent which at the time was not considered a criminal offence under the eyes of the law.
Ms Sims started a petition to make image-based sexual abuse a crime, gaining over 85,000 signatures. In February 2021, Coco’s Law was officially enacted, in memory of 21-year-old Dublin woman Nicola Fox, who died by suicide in 2018 after three years of relentless online bullying.
The law, otherwise known as the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act, means that serious online harassment and the sharing of intimate images without consent is now a crime.
The Department of Justice launched a hotline for victims of image-based sexual abuse in 2021 where anyone impacted by intimate images being shared without their consent can report it.
To date, a total of 240 prosecutions have been taken since the law came into force. Figures from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) show that figures increased by 41.5 per cent to 75.
The figures show that the 75 cases taken last year by the ODPP follow 53 cases taken in 2024.
Already this year, a further 12 cases have been taken, and the 75 cases in 2025 is almost double the 43 cases taken in 2023.
The number of cases taken in 2022 totalled 49 and eight in 2021.
Facing Prison
Those found convicted of offences under Coco’s Law can face prison terms of up to three years in the circuit court.
Among these figures includes the conviction of Sean Tyrrell, the former partner of Ireland South Sinn Féin MEP Kathleen Funchion, who had his sentence for offences under Coco’s Law increased following an appeal. Mr Tyrrell was given a four-month custodial sentence in April 2026, with a separate four-month jail term suspended for two years, for offences under the law.
In a powerful victim impact statement during the trial last April, Ms Funchion spoke of the lasting distress she endured at the hands of her former partner.
She described being in a relationship in which her ex-partner “always had to control the narrative” and “did everything in his power to continue this until the very end”.
Ms Funchion compared the lasting impacts to a cracked plate as “when it comes to trust, no matter what time has passed, you will always have the scar”.
Last week, Jackie Fox, the mother of the late Nicole Fox, addressed members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where she urged them to introduce stronger legal safeguards, and to implement Coco’s Law across the EU.
During her speech, Ms Fox explained that although her daughter was physically abused on a regular basis by her perpetrators, it was the online bullying that Nicole endured that impacted her the most.
“They made a fake profile page on Facebook, and they said that they were never going to leave her alone, that they were going to beat her up so badly and leave her on life support.”
“They told Nicole every day with the likes of WhatsApp and Snapchat and all other social media apps, they told her every day to die, go and hang yourself, slit your wrists and everyone hates you”, Ms Fox shared.
Deep Fake Call
And in Ireland, further calls to extend the law to include the creation of sexualised AI deepfakes and the creation of nonconsensual intimate images and videos are also being made.
Sinn Féin are urging the government to introduce the Bill, brought forward by party spokesperson for on Justice, Matt Carthy and spokesperson on Equality, Domestic and Gender Violence, Máire Devine last month.
Limerick City TD Maurice Quinlivan said the bill would “also extend the statute of limitations from two to five years which would allow victims plenty of time to come forward, and also give An Garda Síochána enough time to forensically technically examine personal electronic devices and servers in order to build a strong case.
“Finally, it would increase the maximum penalties upon conviction to properly reflect the heinousness of these crimes. Creating child sexual abuse material using artificial intelligence is abhorrent.
“Cyberbullying and harassing women in an effort to silence them, to influence others’ opinions of them and shatter their self-esteem, is reprehensible. People are doing these things in Ireland using generative AI tools available now”, Deputy Quinlivan added.
The Bill followed calls for an amendment to the law following a decision by the Data Protection Commission (DPC) to launch an investigation into social media platform X, formerly Twitter, the parent company of Grok, over the generation and sharing of sexualised images.
AI generated child images
Concerns were raised at the beginning of 2026 about the misuse of AI intelligence tool Grok, with Minister of State with responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Niamh Smyth saying at the time that “both Irish and EU laws have been broken in relation to AI generated child abuse images.”
It is not currently a criminal offence under Irish law to deploy an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system to be used in that way. Ireland’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, has since said that tougher laws may be needed to address the rise in AI-generated sexual imagery.
Speaking to the Limerick Post, Ms Sims says she would back the calls from Ireland’s media regulator: “The problem is enforcement, there’s no point in having a strong law without it. I think that’s where Ireland is at the minute, because I know of people who are reporting and still, they are told that this isn’t a crime, it needs to be taken a bit more seriously.”
Court Reporting Scheme