Kerry councillor says ‘advertised’ CCTV is ‘utterly redundant’

By Alastair Tibbs, The Kerryman

A Kerry councillor has decried the “advertising” of CCTV intended to catch fly tipping slamming the policy as “utterly redundant”.

Councillor Jackie Healy-Rae said erecting signage around dumping hotspots to warn of CCTV was allowing offenders to evade the systems altogether.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in 2018, drawing on earlier EU legislation which applied to all member states.

Under the law, a CCTV owner must demonstrate they have a lawful basis for operating the CCTV system, install appropriate signage and only keep any personal data for a limited period of time.

Cllr Healy-Rae lamented the requirement for signage, arguing that fly tipping offenders would just commit crimes elsewhere.

“It’s utterly redundant if we’re putting them in black spots and then advertising them,” he said.

“People aren’t that stupid. They’ll find another place and dump it there.”

“I would be against KCC spending as much as €1…it totally defeats the point. What as elected members we’re looking for is to help prevent people from dumping in the county.”

Council codes of practice also state that a CCTV scheme should only be introduced where all other preventative measures have been exhausted.

The council admitted they were “frustrated” with the process but stressed they had no influence over the rules.

Councillor Dierdre Ferris took aim at the council’s written response to Cllr Healy-Rae, picking out the mention of Waste Enforcement Regional Lead Authorities (WERLA) and Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).

“I’m going to bang my head off a wall if I see another acronym,” she joked.

Cllr Ferris requested the council compile a report on the cost of proving CCTV is the only solution.

The council said a number of sites throughout the county, with some have resulted in interventions being undertaken. However, none have resulted in CCTV installation being determined as being proportionate.

Kerry County Council reported last year that fly tipping was down over 30 per cent between 2022 and 2024. In 2024, around 67 tonnes of fly tipping was removed by the council compared to nearly 96 tonnes in 2022.

However, only last month Councillor Podge Foley addressed an incident at Glencuttane, labelling the abandoned waste as a “disaster”.

He urged the council to visit the site and see it for themselves.

“The land is a disaster,” he said, requesting the council pay for the “whole clean-up bill”.

The council said the primary responsibility for private property rests with the landowner and that they currently had an open file in relation to a waste issue at a site.