Iarnród Éireann is to spend some €150,000 looking for new ways to remove graffiti from trains.
A consultation put out to tender said the company has been "affected by ongoing graffiti and tagging of their rolling stock at various locations around the county [sic]".
It said this approach is part of a "zero tolerance" policy to incidents of graffiti and tagging.
Irish Rail added that it has to regularly take stock out of service to clean it.
It wants to find an experienced rolling stock graffiti removal company to lower its overall cost base.
The cost of the tender has been pitched at €150,000, excluding VAT.
Barry Kenny from Irish Rail told Lunchtime Live they are looking for innovate solutions.
"It won't be a situation that we won't be doing it ourselves, but it is just looking to the market to see are there new processes, are there new products that are available?
"Can we do things like install chemicals that are part of the wash process that reduces the need for manual cleaning?
"It is just about getting that expertise in, so we can save on the costs and reduce the number of incidents overall as well".
He said this is an ongoing problem every year.
"If you take over the last two years, on average we have had 250 incidents each year of graffiti vandalism effecting 380 carriages.
"We've put out a procurement to see are their treatments that can be applied to the carriages that prevent the graffiti damaging it or ways to remove it more efficiently."
'Sanitary environment'
He said the reason they always remove graffiti is to keep people feeling safe.
"If you've seen in some other European cities where they don't do this, you get a very unsafe feeling all of of a sudden.
"It becomes very prevalent if the entire fleet becomes destroyed.
"It's obviously important that you create an environment - particularly now in the time of COVID - that people think it's sanitary and it's safe."
He said the cost of damage alone, excluding the cost of cleaning materials or staff, is €750,000 a year.
"We want to be spending [money] for the benefit of customers, rather than cleaning off vandalism", he said.
Back in 2015, the company spent €250,000 on the removal of graffiti on its trains.
While this figure was only for rolling stock - with further hundreds of thousands spent for removal of graffiti on buildings, bridges and tunnels across the network.
