16/1/13

Galway Independent

Graffiti clean-up costing city €20,000 per annum

16/01/2013

by Conor Harrington

Cleaning up after graffiti artists in the city is costing Galway City Council €20,000 per year, it has emerged. Councillors attending Monday’s Joint Policing Committee (JPC) meeting called for affirmative action to be taken in ridding the city of its graffiti problem once and for all. Cllr Niall McNelis said that a small handful of individuals are responsible for the majority of the city’s graffiti and called for cameras, similar to those used to curb illegal dumping on the Western Distributor Road, to be installed.

Cllr Donal Lyons said the city’s graffiti problem had been ongoing for years and the city and the Gardaí had still not gotten to grips with it. “The very minute it goes up, it should be coming down,” said Cllr Lyons.

Galway City Mayor, Cllr Terry O’Flaherty called graffiti “a blight” on the city and suggested that, when caught, the perpetrators be made to clean up their handiwork. “If they were made clean it up themselves, they’d soon stop it,” she said. JPC committee member, Mr Tommy Flaherty, from Galway City Community Forum, echoed calls for a camera and suggested a temporary “covert” camera might suffice to catch the offending graffiti artists.

Superintendent Marie Skehill said that graffiti was “criminal damage” that the Gardaí took it very seriously, although she noted that it was a difficult crime to police.