Attitudes towards the sex industry in Ireland appear to be changing, writes Carl O'Brien.
The woman at the other end of the phone in Swedish Massage Babes is breathlessly detailing what's on offer this evening. "We have a cosy, city-centre apartment. We offer a shower, massage and the rest," she purrs, in what sounds like an Eastern European accent. "There's an 18-year-old blonde girl from Holland, a 19-year-old from Prague. They all wear lovely lingerie. It's €150 for half-an-hour or €200 for an hour. You can come and have a drink, maybe?"
It's typical fare for the dozens of brothels in Dublin with such florid names as Leeson Street Escorts, X-Lapdancers, Pussy Palace, Dublin Kittens, Charlie's Angels and Cuban Cutie Club. The flagrant advertising of these outlets as "health studios" and "massage parlours" in In Dublin magazine and other publications sparked a storm of indignant protest and a Garda investigation four years ago. Yet, despite a "massive" probe known as Operation Gladiator, which saw a 12th and final person prosecuted this week, sources close to the industry say there are now more brothels than ever meeting an ever increasing demand.
The Dublin based Ruhama Women's Project - a support group for women working in prostitution - is in contact with around 600 women in the trade, but says this number is "just the tip of the iceberg".
It says more and more women are being trafficked to the country, mostly from Eastern Europe, where many have their passports taken by brothel owners, find themselves subjected to ruthless exploitation and are often afraid to approach gardaí.
But one of the more disturbing changes the group is coming across, says Ruhama's director Maura Connelly, is the softening of attitudes towards prostitution as an almost acceptable face of the sex industry. "There is an attitude that prostitution is terrible when it involves children yet, when it come to adults, it's somehow different. The sex industry is becoming more normalised. You don't have to explore very far on the Internet to find out about brothels or escort agencies. It's more and more upfront."
She says the phenomenal growth of lap-dancing clubs, which have "inevitable" links to prostitution, is helping to fuel this attitude change. "In many countries, including EU countries, lap-dancing leads many women into prostitution and this is our main concern about the development of Irish clubs," Connelly says.
The courts too, it seems, don't rate the offence of prostitution all that seriously. Most of the brothel-owners prosecuted under Operation Gladiator escaped with suspended sentences and fines unlikely to put a dent on their substantial earnings.
Peter McCormack, a former RUC reservist who leased a premises used as a brothel, was handed a two-year suspended sentence and fined €3,000 this week. Stephen Hutton was handed an 18-month suspended sentence and a €6,500 fine. Samantha Hutton and Karen Leahy received a €6,500 fine each and an 18-month suspended sentence.
Even the tabloid newspapers, which have tried to demonise the brothel owners with such brutish tags as "The Beast" and "Madame Mean", seem to have given up. One of the newspapers went so far as to serialise the salacious life story of Samantha Hutton.
The law governing the area is the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act of 1993, which made prostitution and living off a prostitute's earnings a criminal offence. The Act provides for fines of up to €12,700 and a six-month jail term for the offence of organising prostitution, or brothel keeping.
But the focus of the Garda is, despite the high-profile nature of Operation Gladiator, overwhelmingly on the "nuisance factor" of women on the streets rather than the pimps and brothel keepers.
Dr Ian O'Donnell, deputy director of UCD's Institute of Criminology, says there has been a massive surge in tackling what is termed the "visible disorderly", which coincided with the Government's much-vaunted zero tolerance strategy.
In 1996 there were around 60 offences recorded for offering or seeking prostitution. The numbers shot up to 1,000 in 1999. Latest figures show there were 560 such offences recorded in 2001. This upsurge was also accompanied by a dramatic increase in the number of offences recorded against people begging on the streets.
Whatever about the priorities of gardaí, it must be asked if the best interests of vulnerable women in prostitution are best served by further criminalising the industry.
The Netherlands, for example, has established a register of brothels, to put them on the same footing as other businesses. But it's not just traditionally liberal European states who are turning to regulation. In Britain, a number of city councils are debating whether to introduce licensing systems for massage parlours, ensuring, among other things, regular medical checks for prostitutes.
Edinburgh has already granted entertainment licences to massage parlours and saunas, a step short of full legalisation. Changing police priorities and an acceptance among the city's authorities that brothels provided a safer base for prostitutes than the streets made the move almost inevitable.
This debate has sparked contrasting views at home. Ivana Bacik, Reid Professor of Law at Trinity College, Dublin, says that while she has serious concerns about the exploitation of prostitutes, she would prefer to see it regulated in the interests of women's safety.
Ruhama's Maura Connelly, however, says the focus should be on changing the attitude of society rather than facilitating the trade.
"If you go back to the slave trade, some boats sailing across the Atlantic claimed they treated slaves better than others by keeping them in better conditions. Creating tolerance zones or regulating the industry would be a similar move. It's still an abuse of human rights, in what may be a slightly better environment.
"The danger is that if we accept it, then we accept that women can be exploited, that they can become commodities to be exchanged or bartered . . . Operation Gladiator is just part of the jigsaw, but you need to go back and ask why do men feel they can use women in this way, and why do some women feel they have no choice but to work in prostitution."