Only ONE person convicted by a court for paying for sex with prostitute in entire year

No other suspect was found guilty of the crime in 2022

Only one person was convicted by a court in Ireland for paying for sex with a prostitute in a whole year.

No other suspect was found guilty of the crime in 2022, new data has revealed. The person was asked to pay into the court poor box as punishment. A total of 12 cases involving 10 individuals were linked to prostitution that year.

Out of those two cases of brothel keeping were dismissed or got the probation act, three were sent forward for trial for brothel keeping and organisation of prostitution.

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Three cases of paying for sex with a prostitute were struck out while three others were also dismissed because the summonses weren’t served.

However 20 people were successfully prosecuted for paying for sex with a hooker last year. From January to December last 18 people were summonsed to court and asked to make a contribution to the court poor box as punishment. Two others were actually fined by the District Court itself.

A further 11 cases were either struck out or dismissed. All of these except one involved sex with prostitutes - the other struck out related to brothel keeping. Since paying for sex because a criminal offence in March, 2017, a total of 198 people have been summonsed for the offence.

The data was provided by the Court Service and released by the Justice Minister Helen McEntee. She said: ”A key purpose of the 2017 Sexual Offences Act was to provide additional protection to persons involved in prostitution, especially vulnerable persons and victims of human trafficking.

“It allows those engaged in prostitution to provide information to Gardai, for instance if they were subjected to violence by clients , without fear of prosecution for selling sexual services”.

She announced a review of the current legislation is being carried out by her Department and the Report is near finalised and she will receive it shortly. The Minister was responding to a parliamentary question on the issue from Galway west Fianna Fáil TD Eamon O Cuiv.

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