A North-East MSP has urged the Scottish Government to act on the scourge of illegal home tattooing.
Alex Johnstone has raised the issue at Holyrood and has asked Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to outline what, if any, advice has been given to local authorities to tackle the problem of rogue tattooists who ink from home outside government legislation.
By submitting a number of written questions to the Scottish Government, Mr Johnstone has discovered that only 11 prosecutions for tattooing without a licence have been made in Scotland in the past five years with only one of those in Courier Country (Perth and Kinross 2011-2012).
However, those figures clash with testimonials from local licenced inkers and a wealth of online profiles, which indicate the problem is much bigger.
Mr Johnstone said: “These figures are in stark contrast to the anecdotal evidence uncovered by The Courier’s own investigation and some of the incidents found on other media.
“Simply checking a popular online auction site for ‘tattoo machines’ yields over 10,000 results and, given that beginner sets can be bought for less than £50, I would suggest that unlicensed tattooing is far more prevalent than Scottish Government figures indicate.
“Tattooing is becoming increasingly popular, with many people using them to record significant life events for example.“But going to an unlicensed, untrained tattooist can result in shockingly bad artwork that is expensive and painful to remove at one end of the spectrum, to becoming infected from unsterilised equipment at the other.”
Angus Council said there are 12 tattooist working from premises and two home based. Dundee City Council confirmed that no licences for home tattooing have ever been issued within their authority area but there are 32 tattooing premises.
Fife has only one licence in operation for home tattooing, with an additional three for mobile facilities and 33 licensed premises operating throughout the area.
Clackmannanshire has three licences and both Perth and Kinross and Stirling Council failed to provide any information.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government takes the public health and safety aspect of tattooing seriously.
“Local authorities are supported in their work by the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland and Health Protection Scotland, who produced an agreed set of national licence conditions and implementation guidance to support the legislation.”