Vandalism is a plague, but sometimes, one really has to stop and wonder at the state of Maltese society.

It is one thing to break a glass bottle, or spray a tag on a wall, but it is an entirely another thing to trash a respite centre for disabled children. We are, of course, talking about the Inspire Centre in Marsascala. The centre serves as not only as respite for parents who need help and time to recharge, but it also serves as a learning centre for children with disabilities.

There have been many scientific explanations about vandalism, and some of the triggers include disenfranchisement, boredom, frustration and latent aggression.

There have been incidents of vandalism at the Marsascala centre before, but not to this scale. Whoever broke in – quite possibly with the help of someone who boosted them over a fence – decided to smear the centre in paint and vandalise some of the doors.

The worst thing, as pointed out by the centre’s management, is not the monetary damage caused, but the fact that the centre will have to be closed down for a number of days until everything is cleaned up and secured.

Inspire tries to make ends meet through the earnings of the park, but even that is not enough. Only a few weeks ago, many people tried to raise money for the park by taking part in the half marathon and marathon. Many of those were people were either parents who have children who use the centre, or family or friends of those people who have pitched in towards the cause. The news of the break-in and vandalism must have broken their hearts.

While the police are rightly investigating, and perhaps the management ought to think about installing some closed circuit television cameras, we really need to take a broader look at society in general.

Some might say that such actions are the folly of youth, or hooligan behaviour – but as has been seen in the case of the Mosta animal killer, it can be put down to mental illness. The man in question, who admitted to killing the animals and displaying them in public, has a mental problem. It has emerged that he had stopped taking his medication and he then committed the acts. So, while it is easy to shout out accusations, we really need to find the root cause of why someone would want to do that to an institution which helps so many families in trying to live a normal life. Everyone in Malta knows what Inspire is, and it is worrying to think that a person could do that, when they knew what the consequences would be. The most important thing now is to clean up the mess and raise money to fix what has been ruined. As always, the public will respond, and that, at least, shows that there are positives to be taken from such an awful turn of events.