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EXCLUSIVE

By Sean Moriarty

Plans to provide CCTV cameras for Killarney Town centre and Ballyspillane remain on the long-finger despite partial funding being released by the Department of Justice and Equality.

There have been calls for CCTV in the wider Killarney area since 2018 but the plan has yet to be progressed.

It is hoped that three separate schemes, one each in the inner town centre, outer town centre and Ballyspillane will come on stream once all of the formalities are completed.

These include the appointment of an independent security expert to review the scheme's designs and clarification from the Data Protection Office on how the scheme may be implemented.

The initial cost of the scheme was priced at €160,000 and the recent grant announcement covers €47,877 of this cost.

“There have been significant changes in the requirements of Data Protection elements of such schemes in recent years, following the introduction of the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and recommendations arising from the Audits of CCTV in Local Authorities and An Garda Síochána,” a Council official explained. “In addition, the technology to be utilised has also changed in the period and it will be useful to assess the technological advances to provide for the best specifications for the project.”

Another stumbling block centres on who is responsible for the management of the data captured by CCTV cameras.

There are continuing discussions between the Gardaí nationally and the Local Authority sector about whether Gardaíwill become Joint Data Controllers for Community CCTV schemes.

“This will also be an important development as it will provide Gardaí with direct operational access to the new systems,” added the official.