DUBLIN BUSINESSES aim to eliminate graffiti in the city centre by the end of next year under a new intensive clean-up and "zero tolerance" campaign.
The Dublin City Business Improvement District (BID), a new association of businesses operating in the capital, plans to spend €150,000 each year to combat Dublin's graffiti problem.
Dublin City Council is responsible for cleaning graffiti from public buildings and monuments. However, shops restaurants and other businesses must remove graffiti from their own premises.
The BID, which was established earlier this year to provide environmental improvement services in addition to the normal street cleaning and maintenance services provided by Dublin City Council, aims to eliminate graffiti from private premises within the next year.
City centre businesses are invited to contact the organisation on 01-6334680 or e-mail at graffiti@dublincitybid.ie to report graffiti. In response, BID "street ambassadors" who are already working on the city streets to combat litter and provide tourist information, will visit the site of the graffiti.
The street ambassador will assess the most appropriate removal technique and then report to a BID contractor who will remove the graffiti. For smaller-scale graffiti the organisation will provide "self-help" graffiti kits for businesses. The organisation is currently compiling a database of all the graffiti in the city. It aims to remove all the graffiti on the database within three to four months and hopes to remove any new graffiti within a day.
BID chief executive Richard Guiney said "the experience right across the US is that once the people who are doing the graffiti realise that it is going to be removed as soon as it is done, they get disillusioned and give up."
The organisation must get permission from building owners to remove graffiti, but Mr Guiney said most businesses were very willing to have their walls cleaned up.
