The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) has removed a social media advertisement about consent featuring grandparents hugging their grandchildren.
The video depicted a young girl being uncomfortable receiving a hug from her grandparents.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said the advertisement was “both inappropriate and demeaning” to grandparents and has been removed by the DRCC following engagement with his officials.
In the advertisement, a voiceover carries the message after the girl expresses discomfort at receiving a hug: “Not everyone wants a hug. Even from the people who love them.”
It added: “Awkward? Maybe. Important? Absolutely.”
The Department of Justice said “We-Consent” is a programme created and developed by the DRCC, aimed at informing, educating and engaging the public about all forms of consent.
“Social media videos shared recently as part of this programme were produced by DRCC at a low cost using volunteers and are not part of a Government advertising campaign,” it said.
“The department understands that DRCC intends to review these videos. They are being removed from their social media channels to enable this review.”
O’Callaghan added that the video produced by the DRCC involving grandparents “does not represent the views of the Government”.
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The Fianna Fáil TD said: “It goes without saying that having loving grandparents in a child’s life is an incredibly positive thing to be cherished and not something to be campaigned against.
“While it is vital to ensure that people understand the concept of consent when it comes to sexual relationships, this video did not advance that aim and in many ways was counterproductive,” he added.
The New York Post had also written about the advertisement over recent hours.
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said the issue of consent in relation to sexual relationships was “very important”.
However, “for anybody to equate sexual relationships between people and a grandparent hugging their grandchild is absolutely inaccurate and completely wrong”, he said on RTÉ Radio 1’s David McCullagh show.
“Is the State now looking for grandparents to second-guess themselves before they hug their grandchildren or show affection to their grandchildren?” he asked.
Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn said he believed the ad “goes too far”, adding that “a lot of decent families will find it insulting”.
He said: “Nobody is saying a child should be forced to hug anyone.
“Parents and grandparents across this country manage that every day with a bit of common sense, and they don’t need the State to show them how.”
Asked about the video on Newstalk’s Claire Byrne show, psychologist John Francis Leader said it was important for people to be able to communicate their specific needs and, as a society, it was important to be supportive of people with different needs.
“People have different norms and different expectations. From a psychological perspective, the key thing that we’re aware is everybody has different needs, and for one person, the hug represents comfort and empowerment and support, and for the other person, it may not represent that,” he said.
“So the challenge is how do you convey a message that suits everybody? To be fair to the video, if you look at it, it does have both. It has a hug and somebody appreciating it, and then it has somebody not appreciating the hug. So I suppose that’s what we all have to grapple with as a society,” he said.
The DRCC has been contacted for comment.