An Irish website and a British magazine on sale in the Republic both carry the "escort agency" advertisements which caused In Dublin to be banned by the Censorship of Publications Board last year.
Loaded magazine and an Irish website with no connection to the magazine both have advertisements for "escorts" with Irish mobile phone numbers.
One of the advertisements in Loaded offers "beautiful top-class escorts" and a "call in or call out service". The service is contactable at Irish mobile telephone numbers. The advertisement also highlights that there are job vacancies at the "agency".
Another advertiser in the British "lads" magazine offers the opportunity to "relax in our luxury apartment with our large selection of beautiful and friendly model-like girls. Call-in or callout service 24 hours". Several messages were left with Loaded's PR agency this weekend, but calls were not returned.
Loaded features articles on music, sex and "laddish" lifestyles and advertises itself with the slogan, "For men who should know better". It was sold out in several Dublin city-centre newsagents this weekend.
An Irish website which also features escort advertisements can be accessed by any computer user connected to the Internet. Along with advertisements for escort services, it contains what are purported to be explicit "reviews" of the sexual performance of women working at the agencies.
Section 23 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994 makes it an offence to publish or distribute an advertisement for a a brothel, or the services of a prostitute, in a manner from which it could be inferred that the premises were used as a brothel or the service offered was prostitution.
The Act says that the publishers and distributors can defend themselves by showing that the offending advertisement was received in the ordinary course of their business, and that they did not know and had no reason to suspect that it related to a brothel or to the services of a prostitute.
The website promises prospective clients that it will "satisfy your adult entertainment needs." It features an article entitled "Police raids, how to deal with them."
A linked site allows escorts to "post any clients which they know are bad: clients who refuse to pay, or clients who ask for escorts and then do not answer the door or even worse, clients who physically and verbally abuse the escorts".
Another part of the website seeks "women currently employed in the escorting and massage field who are interested in moving their place of employment".
It stresses that it "is not intended to invite women to the escort business nor is it an advertisement for staff."
An introduction to the site says it believes "any money charged [by the agencies advertised] is exclusively for time and companionship. Anything else that may or may not happen is a matter of personal choice and personal preference between two or more consenting adults of legal age and is not contracted for."
The site also asks users to declare they are over 18 years of age, but it does not require users to register or give their names.
The entertainment listings magazine, In Dublin, was banned by the Censorship of Publications Board for six months last August, on the grounds that it had been "usually or frequently indecent or obscene." It was believed that the reason was its advertisements for escort agencies, massage parlours and so-called health studios. The ban was suspended when Mr Justice O'Donovan granted a judicial review to Mr Mike Hogan, publisher of In Dublin. The High Court described the way the board had handled the ban as "incredible" and "reprehensible."
Before the review was granted Mr Hogan had published an almost identical magazine called Dublin, which contained similar advertisements.
After the High Court decision, In Dublin ceased publication of the advertisements.
The Department of Justice said at the time that it was reviewing the censorship laws in view of "the significant social and cultural changes" that had occurred since the legislation was drafted in the 1920s and the 1940s.
At the time the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, said he hoped to publish a consultation document on changing the relevant legislation before the end of 1999. However, a spokesman for the Minister said at the weekend that he could not say at what stage the review was.
The Garda subsequently announced that it would include newspapers and magazines which carried advertisements for brothels and prostitutes in a major investigation of the sex industry. The investigation, which is continuing, is aimed at those who organise, control and profiteer from prostitution.
