Mia De Faoite was drawn into working as a prostitute in Dublin between 2005 and 2010 as a result of her heroin addiction.

When I stepped out there for the first time I had no idea what it would take from me,” she says. “It stripped every bit of dignity from me I ever had.”

She experienced regular violence, including gang rape. “But even the ones who aren’t violent don’t treat you as they would other women. You are there to be used.”

A change in the law to criminalise buying sex and decriminalise selling it would send a “massive psychological message” to the women in her position, she says, and would have made it easier for her to seek help.

“It’s saying society has decided that what is being done to you is not acceptable.”

Ms De Faoite firmly believes that the law must apply at home and abroad to stop sex tourism.

“We had Americans and English men over for the Ryder Cup and the horseracing. Taxi drivers would sometimes bring them.”

When Northern Ireland criminalised buying sex last June, there was a rise in sales of women and girls in border counties of the Republic of Ireland, she added.