GRÁINNE SEOIGE IS to tell TDs and Senators today that laws do not currently protect victims of image-based sexual abuse. 

Seoige will appear before the Oireachtas Media Committee today to discuss online safety and the regulation of online platforms. 

It comes after she spoke out last week about the devastating impact the sharing of fake sexual images had on her during the 2024 general election.

During the election campaign, Seoige, who was a candidate for Fianna Fáil, had a fake sexual image of her circulated on WhatsApp. 

The existence of the image was brought to her attention by people she knew, and gardaí were alerted.

“It was the most shocking thing that’s ever happened to me in my life, and it took a long time to really process it,” Seoige told RTÉ’s Sarah McInerney last week. 

In her opening statement to the Oireachtas Media Committee today, seen by The Journal, Seoige tells TDs and Senators that she is angry about what happened to her and the impact it had on those closest to her. 

“I am a victim who wants action, not soundbites,” Seoige wrote in her statement.

The broadcaster said that since speaking out last week, she has received hundreds of messages, some from parents of teenagers and women who have had the same experience as her. 

She said that, like her, they hit dead ends, despite doing everything they were supposed to do by reporting it to the gardaí and to the relevant social media platform. 

“Repeatedly they hit dead ends and were told by An Garda Síochana that they did not have sufficient powers to identify perpetrators or to compel others to identify perpetrators – which was also the situation in my case,” Seoige said. 

“This cannot be allowed to continue. It is simply too serious, and we must bring an end to it,” she said. 

Seoige said that even though the AI-generated images of her were shared hundreds, if not thousands, of times, “the law as it stands and certainly Meta place the burden on the victim to identify every individual in the chain of dissemination”. 

“Privacy and encryption cannot be allowed trump criminal behaviour,” she said, adding that legislators need to tackle both the creation of such images on sites such as Grok, and the dissemination on sites like WhatsApp.

“Ireland has faced many abuse scandals where systemic failure by authorities was later acknowledged. This will be the abuse scandal of the 21st century if we do not act now: legislate urgently, be prepared to legislate again as this technology evolves, and ensure that all relevant regulators are empowered and ready to act,” Seoige concluded.