Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 September 2023
401. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Minister for Justice the total cost, by month, from May 2023 to date, of television advertising in relation to her Department's public information campaign in relation to threatening to share intimate images; to estimate the cost, by month, for the remainder of 2023; the total number of individual advertisements that appeared on television, by month; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41088/23]
View answerIn September 2021, following on from the commencement of Coco’s Law, my Department launched the first phase of a campaign to raise awareness of the strong legislation in place to combat intimate image abuse and to make victims aware of the support and assistance available.
The first phase of this campaign focused on the sharing of intimate images without consent and included elements to both highlight the fact this is a criminal offence regardless of the motivation for doing so and information for victims about reporting to Hotline.ie if this happened to them so that Hotline.ie could engage with online platform providers to have their image taken down and the matter referred for investigation.
As the Deputy will be aware, this campaign was expanded upon under the preventative pillar of Zero Tolerance, our Third National Strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence. The second phase of the campaign is entitled ‘Serious Consequences’ and is focused on raising awareness that it is also illegal to threaten to share intimate images.
The 'Serious Consequences' campaign was launched in May of this year and the first burst ran until the end of June, with adverts running on TV, radio, in cinemas, on video on demand, digital audio, social media and using digital out of home advertising. A second burst of public information is currently underway.
For reasons of commercial sensitivity, I am not in a position to provide information on the number of individual advertisements that appeared on television, by month or the breakdown by month. However, I can confirm that the total spend on TV advertising for 'Serious Consequences' this year will be €679,955.29.
