Reports in a national newspaper this week claimed an escort working in Galway was attacked in a city hotel recently. The escort, known as Brenda, posted a message on the Escort-Ireland website last Wednesday warning others working in the industry to be a wary of a man in the Galway area who had attacked her.

"Escort-Ireland.com operates a private forum for escorts to exchange information about dangerous clients," explained Patricia Albright of Escorts-Ireland.com. "Brenda put a warning up on this forum at 7.08pm on Wednesday, 20 August. This was minutes after her ordeal ended and before she sought medical assistance or called the police.

"She also shared the phone number her attacker had used to book the appointment with her, so other escorts could add this to their phones immediately. The attack on Brenda was very serious and her actions following it are a credit to her," Ms Albright added.

Ms Albright also admitted that Escort-Ireland had been saddened by the case of Brenda and that they are very concerned about escort safety in Ireland. "Dublin escort Belinda Pereira was murdered in her apartment in 1996. This murder is still unsolved. Twelve years on it seems lessons have not been learnt and nothing has changed for the better.

"We are not suggesting Ireland should be the next country to create legal red-light-districts, but we would like to see prostitution decriminalised at least to the point that independent escorts in Ireland do not have to fear the law.

"At the moment, whilst it is not illegal to work as an independent escort here, ladies have to work alone in order to not be considered a brothel. This is not right because ladies working alone are much more vulnerable to attack than ladies working in pairs.

"It is not just laws that need to change. We would like to see an overall attitude change. Currently the media is often very hostile towards escorts and unfair in its reporting, leaving the public with a false view of the industry. There are also practically no support services for escorts in Ireland. At the moment many escorts rightly feel that they have nowhere to turn to if they have problems.