Limerick city complaint over crime posters thrown out

Complaints by the city of Limerick about an Irish Examiner advertising campaign for a recent crime series were thrown out by the Advertising Standards Authority as neither inaccurate nor misleading.

The complaints centred around a poster used in Limerick to advertise a county-by-county special investigation into crime figures in Clare, Cork, Tipperary, Waterford, Kerry and Cork. The billboard posters in Limerick featured a photograph of King John’s Castle in Limerick with images of yellow police tape stating “CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS”.

The poster garnered substantial reaction in Limerick with some commentators claiming it unfairly targeted the city. The Limerick Communications Office complained to the ASAI that the poster “implied that there were high levels of crime in Limerick which they said was not supported by data from the Central Statistics Office” and that the poster was perpetuating a stereotype of Limerick and its citizens which was inaccurate and misleading.