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IARNRÓD ÉIREANN HAS announced that they will use trained security dogs to tackle the growing issue of graffiti on trains at depots.
The public transport organisation has partnered with LFK9 Security Ltd to help prevent instances of criminal damage to carriages at stations across the network.
The company provides highly trained security dogs that can sniff out intruders, enabling their handlers to alert Gardaí.
Despite the rate of graffiti incidents dropping last year, it still cost the service €1 million to clean up after vandals, compared to €350,000 worth of removal costs in 2015.
Roughly 100 instances of graffiti on trains were reported in 2024, according to Iarnród Éireann.
Chief Mechanical Engineer with Iarnród Éireann, Peter Smyth said that graffiti of the organisation’s trains remains “a major problem”.
“It takes time away from regular maintenance regimes and ultimately inconveniences our customers, when trains are out of service,” Smyth said.
“We are busier than ever and need every carriage we have out on the network. I am extremely encouraged about this security dog initiative so far and hope that it will prevent many needless acts of vandalism against our rolling stock.
The first success of the new initiative happened on 26 December at Fairview, where the dog sniffed out an intruder with a large bag of spray cans trying to breach the perimeter fence.
Gardaí were alerted and gave chase, and no graffiti occurred on that occasion.
“I would like to commend An Garda Síochána for their diligence in bringing vandals to justice and I am confident that we will have convictions from the cases that are pending before the courts,” Symth said.
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Plenty of prisoners that could do with a 3 day a week cleaning exercise.
One million euros, but just 1000 instances of graffiti. €10k cleanup costs per instance. Something’s wrong there.
@Shane O Neill: good business between the so called artists and the cleaners, using public money?
@Shane O Neill: Your maths is wrong. 1,000,000 ÷ 1000 = 1000.
@Chop Chop: His 1000 is a typo for 100.
@Shane O Neill: You need to get your maths correct. It us €1000 per incident and not €10,000
@Shane O Neill: They have to repaint or rewrap the carriages and the same with the building plus the damage to the area or the trains.
When they’re cleaning off the graffiti maybe they could clean off the dirt as well while they’re at it. I regularly travel around what’s grandly called the Cork commuter area and often can’t see out of the train because of the dirt of the windows.
@Declan Young: only in Ireland it’s let happen time to wake up and do something about it
@Alan Moloney: It’s in many countries, Ireland being no different
Perhaps working with the graffiti community might be better.
Local communities could work together to make proposals on how to paint the trains.
Maybe make graffiti trains a feature in Ireland. They are already drab looking things, a bit of spray paint brightens them up a bit.
@Archie McLoughlin: Maybe don’t vandalise trains.
@Archie McLoughlin: You’re right, I do love to see evoke and egor sprayed everywhere, really adds a touch of class to the area, like the rooftops in Ranelagh (like my small business) amazing work trespassing and breaking my roof tiles in their pursuit of art
@Archie McLoughlin: Makes sense, but no skin and bone in that Archie. People need their egos flexed. Primordial justice to satisfy the blood-thirty public. One persons art is anothers trash.
Do the vandals speak good English?
@Liam Money: Despite being born and raised here and from generations of the same, you’d struggle to recognise the vowels and consonants that they manage to spit out at as any recorded language. ‘No comment’ and ‘I wasn’t me’ and ‘solicitor’ come through as clear as day though.
@Ronan Mc: the irony of “I wasn’t me” in your post is hilarious
@John Darker: You have it down to a T.
Maybe they could also enforce ‘no feet on seats’
Seats on some dart carriages are in a disgusting state
Love to see it. Everywhere I go it’s mad to see some of the same names in Spain, France, Dublin, etc. bit of eye candy on the transport crawl. TOX was the best for me, total vandal in the hardest of spots, disgusting how he was sold out by Eine!
Delighted for you Liam. Might join your team with my K9.
have your say