CYBERSPACE—Someone inside the Irish parliament has quite a taste for porn, at least according to public records released to Ireland’s media this week. The records, which log visits to web sites through wifi networks serving the Houses of the Oireachtas—the two branches of Ireland’s national legislature—revealed 684 visits to 306 different porn sites just since October.
The records, released to the Irish Daily Star newspaper, did not identify exactly where each site visited originated. While it remains possible that Irish politicians were actually looking at porn from their official government accounts, the visits could also have come from staff members, reporters who cover the Irish parliament or even tourists and other visitors to Leinster House, the 370-year-old castle that since 1922 has served as the seat of Ireland’s parliamentary government.
The porn visits occurred despite the fact that Leinster House IT staff blocked access to porn sites through the Oireachtas wifi network three years ago. But clearly numerous loopholes still exist. Similar issues were spotted at this same time last year when “thousands of attempts were made to access hardcore pornography sites” on Irish parliamentary computers, according to a report in The Irish Mirror newspaper.
In just three weeks of December 2016, according to records obtained by The Irish Independent newspaper, nearly 400 visits to porn sites, or at least attempted visits, were logged by the Oireachtas computer network, and the latest statistics show that the Irish parliament remains a hotbed of online porn surfing.
Xvideos.com was a popular site with Irish legislative computer users, with sites such as HotMale.com, BustyTeenGallery.com, CumOnMy.com and BestXXXPics.cm also making the list of those visited via the wifi network inside Leinster House.
Online dating sites, including Olderdating.com and naughtyolderdating.com, were also popular with Houses of the Oireachtas web surfers, as were gambling sites. Indeed, it appears that the one thing more popular than sex in the Irish parliament is wagering money.
The legal betting sites Skybet and Paddy Power were among the leaders in the more than 13,000 attempted visits to gambling sites on the Irish parliament wifi network since October.
