GARDAI are still trying to trace the source of the second spate of racist graffiti and intimidation in Dublin in three weeks. Yesterday a pharmacist with a shop at Phibsboro Shopping Centre said he had found the locks of his shop had been super glued shut on Sunday night while racist graffiti were painted on the shutters.
Mr Ranjith Lalloo, who is from an Indian family but came to the Republic from South Africa 20 years ago, said he had lost business during the 31/2 hours it took a locksmith to free the locks on Monday morning.
The incident follows a similar incident on Christmas Eve when, the shutters of Mr Lalloo's newsagent's on Berkeley Road, Phibsboro, were also defaced with graffiti. The shopkeepers, who are a different family, said it was a rare event but that it had happened before.
Also on Christmas Eve a wall at the Royal Canal Bank, near the newsagent's shop, was sprayed with graffiti which said "Blacks get out of Ireland".
Yesterday Mr Lalloo, the pharmacist, said his son had also received a threatening telephone call. He said gardai told him they believed an elderly man was in citing younger people to paint the graffiti.
However, the Garda would only confirm that an investigation was ongoing, and said that, "at this stage there is no indication that any one person or group is responsible
The new spate of graffiti was condemned yesterday by the Labour Party TD, Mr Joe Costello, who said gardai should "address the issue with the utmost urgency".
Mr Christy Burke, a Sinn Fein councillor, said the graffiti and intimidation were part of a campaign by "a group of neo nazis".