CRIME the small stuff:Convictions for graffiti can mean a 10-year jail term but the few cases that end up in court result in trivial fines. Ronan McGreevyreports
It is described as a "charming family/investment residence" in a "much sought after location". Even allowing for the estate agent speak, there is much to be said for the distinctive white, 1970s-style house with its angular features on sale in Glasnevin, north Dublin.
The sales pitch, though, doesn't mention the graffiti on the side wall of the property overlooking the green.
Over the outline of original graffiti that was washed off with a calcium carbonate solution by council workers, somebody has drawn the outline of a face, various squiggles and the initials SPB. This is a "tag" - the signature graffiti vandals leave after them.
"That's the muppet over there," says a teenage neighbour who claims to be a victim of SPB's malicious graffiti. He points Dublin City Council's graffiti officer, Martin Daly, in the direction of a house where the alleged offender lives.
Daly notes the name and the house number - details he will pass on to gardaí in Finglas - but experience has taught him to hold out little hope that anything significant will be done.
In theory, graffiti vandals can be prosecuted under Section II of the Criminal Damage Act, 1991, and the Litter Pollution Act, 1997. Possible sanctions include a custodial sentence of up to 10 years or a €10,000 fine.
"I've been aware in the last couple of years of where prosecutions have come, a couple of fines have been paid but you count them on one hand," Daly says.
"In the last couple of years there has been more of an effort to catch people in the act. However, I'm not aware of any prosecutions pending for that.
"If we keep letting people off with a slap on the wrist, then they are not going to be too concerned about getting caught. If the court systems don't effectively deal with the offenders, why even have it as part of the Criminal Damage Act?"
While unsightly, the graffiti on the wall in Glasnevin is inoffensive compared to a racist remark sprayed outside O'Connell School on North Richmond Street in Dublin's north inner city. Racist slogans and swastikas appear with depressing regularity wherever black families have moved into inner-city areas.
Graffiti that is racist, offensive or politically motivated is the council's priority.
In the past six months 879 instances of graffiti have been identified in Dublin City Council's area.
"You don't realise how much graffiti there is until you go looking for it. It's everywhere," said Ciarán McInerney, who has been cleaning up Dublin's graffiti for 15 years - and once had his van burned out for his troubles.
A drive around the north inner city reveals the extent of the problem. There is hardly a stretch of wall, gate, hoarding or billboard that isn't festooned with tags.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has raised the issue, inquiring why nothing has been done about the graffiti on the new Shantalla flyover. "It's election year - we get letters from politicians all the time," says Daly. "He's one of the polite ones."
Graffiti writers earn considerable kudos from their peers for tagging in risky places such as the undersides of bridges, high-rise buildings, railway underpasses and river banks.
In East Wall someone drew their tag in 10ft letters while perched on a ledge that could be no more than a foot wide.
"We had a guy who painted the roofs and the chimney stacks all along Leeson Street," recalls McInerney. "Somebody is going to get killed." (Earlier this year two men were killed writing graffiti on a London Underground tunnel.)
The proliferation of graffiti has not gone unnoticed by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell. Last year he told the Dáil that his own middle-class south Dublin constituency was "under sustained attack" by graffiti "vandals" - a remark that incurred the wrath of self-proclaimed graffiti "artists". McDowell said social deprivation was no excuse for tagging walls. "It seems to be spreading everywhere," he said.
Last year the Government announced a €3 million pilot project, including a "rapid response unit", to tackle graffiti in the worst affected parts of Dublin, Bray and Galway.
This was on top of the millions already being spent on the problem by local authorities. But Daly believes that in addition to a clean-up budget, there must be the prospect of jail to deter hardened offenders. "A couple of years ago I was asked how much we should put in the estimates for graffiti clean-up. I said €10 million. It was an exaggeration, but I could spend €10 million but it wouldn't even be noticed. Custodial sentences will not necessarily stop anything, but they will make other people think. And if you reduce the problem, it makes it easier to deal with."
Tomorrow: bicycle theft