At least 62 men visited brothel daily

WITH a turnover of €4 million, at least 62 men on a daily basis visited the Dublin brothel whose manager was jailed on Wednesday.

That means that the 16 prostitutes working at the rented apartment accommodated nearly 23,000 men per year while the brothel was in business.

Detectives were able to work out from the meticulous records kept by the operators, that in the four working shifts just before they raided the brothel in Bachelors Walk, Dublin, on October 10, 2005, the enterprise had generated €22,000 in ‘business’.

Ruhama, which works with people involved with prostitution, said the numbers were disturbing.

“It is a significant number. Do the men using these women realise that often the women are being abused. The promoters make it look glamorous, but it is not always what it seems.

“How would the men feel if it was their sister, daughter or partner?” said Gerardine Rowley of Ruhama.

As an indication of the size of the enterprise, it emerged during the trial that the brothel had its own call centre located elsewhere in Dublin which had 35 mobile phones which could receive bookings. Of those, 32 were in operation.

Within days of the raid, 14 of the numbers were back in use catering for the demand which still remained.

It is estimated there are at least 1,000 women and a far smaller number of men, of various nationalities offering sex to Irish men on a regular basis. The majority advertise their ‘services’ on internet sites controlled from outside the country. The use of mobile phones would appear crucial to the business.

There were 19 brothels — or escort agencies as they class themselves — listed for Dublin alone yesterday on the website www.escort-ireland.com.

For those brothels all but a few shared a mobile number with at least two others.

That means there is a bank of women being controlled by an operator who directs clients to the women.

The phone numbers are all pay-as-you-go and so are hard to trace.

The 2005 Garda Commissioner’s Report listed 38 cases of loitering with the intention of prostitution — seven cases ended in conviction, three were withdrawn and the rest are pending.

There were no cases of living on the earnings of prostitution. And there were three cases of brothel-keeping. Of those, only one case was commenced.

Ruhama welcomed the sentencing of Deena Edridge and praised the Dublin vice squad for its diligence.