A Belfast graffiti artist has already fallen foul of this new technological system. "A tagger from Belfast was caught tagging in Sweden recently and they have matched his tag to graffiti in three other countries. So he will now face a number of prosecutions thanks to the database, " said Martin Daly, the man in charge of graffiti removal at Dublin City Council.

Daly has met with the officials in Britain who established the database and will begin to upload hundreds of photos from around Ireland to the database in the coming weeks. "So the next time someone is caught doing a tag here, we can then upload the photo onto the database and see if their tag pops up anywhere else. A lot of prolific taggers will travel the world doing graffiti. For very highprofile taggers, this will be a major deterrent, " said Daly.

"At the moment in Ireland, if someone is caught doing one piece of graffiti, they won't usually get into too much trouble. But if that one tag can now be matched to 20 or 30 more, then they're in serious trouble for criminal damage. We can also use it as a national, as well as international, database here in Ireland."

Currently, a person can receive a fine of up to 6,350 and a short custodial sentence under the 1991 Criminal Damage Bill for spraying graffiti in Ireland. The database was established in Britain some years ago and, soon after, other European countries began enquiring about pooling their information. Ireland is the latest country to sign up after Daly made representations for our inclusion. "I met with the officials in Britain a couple of weeks ago and now it's just a matter of ironing out data protection issues. It's already acting as a deterrent to graffiti artists here but with Ireland's direct involvement now, that will increase dramatically, " he said.

Dublin City Council is also in the process of setting up five designated graffiti areas for artists in Dublin, but these plans are still at an early stage. "I do want to work with graffiti artists and give them an artistic outlet. But while it might be a fashionable crime, it's still a crime, " Daly said. "If their artwork is so good, why don't they go and do it on their own homes?"