A bill to criminalise the purchasing of sex has passed through the Dáil and will now be considered by the Seanad before becoming law. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill contains a range of measures in addition to the bar on purchasing sexual services, such as protecting children against online grooming; new offences in relation to child pornography; maintaining the age of consent to sexual activity at 17 years of age and providing new rules for sexual consent. Ruhama, the group working with those falling victim to sexual exploitation, welcomed the progress of the bill. The body’s CEO Sarah Benson said the criminalising the purchase of sex deters men from the “exploitative act” of buying sex. It has a “normative effect” where “it is no longer acceptable for any human being to buy access to another”. Meanwhile, Denise Charlton of the anti-prostitution Turn Off the Red Light campaign, said the bill shifts “attention to the perpetrators of sexual crime, and those who enable abuse and exploitation to continue”.