No CCTV for north Kerry town without government action says councillor

By Alastair Tibbs, The Kerryman

Listowel needs government legislation to move forward for its long sought after CCTV system a Kerry councillor has said.

While An Garda Síochána recently launched a public consultation to help expedite the introduction of CCTV, Sinn Féin Councillor Tom Barry argued no change could happen before GDPR issues were tackled with legislation.

He said the local Gardai in Listowel were ‘all for it’ but claimed no roll-out of the badly needed system could not be undertaken in Listowel under current GDPR rules.

The town still has no CCTV system deployed despite being the third largest settlement in Kerry.

At a recent Listowel Municipal District (MD) meeting, Fine Gael Councillor Aoife Kennelly called on Kerry County Council (KCC) to engage with An Garda Síochána in light of the recent public consultation run by the agency, regarding codes of practice for third-party live CCTV.

She also asked KCC to identify suitable locations across the MD where their installation would improve public safety.

Fly tipping, near O’Connells Avenue, Listowel

“Its something that I’d like to see KCC run out,” said Cllr Kennelly.

“Theres a lot of areas in our MD that require CCTV…we’ve had a lot of issues with dumping and vandalism.”

“I think it would hugely beneficial…to see other councils looking into and doing it now, it’s something we should be following in suit.”

While she felt that KCC were ‘shying away’ from the project, Councillor Tom Barry insisted that it was GDPR that was preventing the CCTV rollout.

He said it was ‘ridiculous’ that a town of Listowel’s size still lacked a camera system.

Cllr Barry recalled when the Listowel Town Council had funding for a townwide CCTV system and even had all the locations picked out.

However, when town councils were abolished as part of the Local Government Reform Act 2014, Listowel lost its budget for the project.

“You don’t want to paint your area as dangerous, but the bottom line is, in this day and age, we should have CCTV in Listowel,” said Cllr Barry.

“Our justice minister needs to get it done because communities and towns are suffering because of the lack of rules.”

KCC replied that CCTV was challenging from a data protection point of view, with current guidance requiring significant justification, including purpose, lawfulness, necessity and proportionality.

Any proposed schemes needed evidence in terms of Garda logs of incidents of anti-social behaviour, with approval from the Garda Commission required.