COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, September 14, 2009

QUESTION NO.5

QUESTION: Councillor S. Crowe

To ask the Manager in view of roll out of CCTV in many areas of South County Dublin will he give a report outlining when the various systems will become fully operational and what if any involvement this Council has had in facilitating the roll out of these systems in communities throughout the County? 

REPLY:

Community CCTV

South Dublin County Council through the Community Services Department has been involved with the various promoters of Community CCTV from the outset and is represented on the overall Steering Committee.

Community C.C.T.V. Projects for North Clondalkin, Jobstown, Killinarden and Brookfield/Fettercairn areas were unanimiously approved by the Joint Policing Committee at its inaugural meeting.

The Council is obliged to act as Data Controller for publicly funded community CCTV schemes in its area. This was a requirement of the Garda Commissioner’s approval of same.

The overall purpose of these schemes is to support local communities who wish to install & maintain CCTV security systems in their area with the aim of increasing public safety & reducing the risk of anti-social & criminal activity in places that the general public have routine access to in their areas.

The Council is fully supportive of the groups involved and has provided every assistance possible to them from initial application stage.

There are 4 schemes in the South Dublin County area:

North Clondalkin

Jobstown

Brookfield – Fettercairn

Killinarden

The respective promoters for these schemes are CPLN Partnership, Jobstown CDP and Partas for the latter two.

Construction is complete on all these Schemes and the cameras are connected to ESB network. Information signage has been placed on all camera poles.

In the case of the Tallaght schemes, the Superintendent approved the proposal to have these monitored by the Tallaght Gardai. This change from the original concept of part time monitoring by the community, possibly as a social enterprise project has the full support of all the stakeholders. Application for funding of the necessary works and supply of monitoring equipment in Tallaght Garda Station has been made by the promoters and when received the necessary arrangements will be made with the Contractor, the Gardai and the promoters to allow the schemes to become fully operational. The technical details have already been discussed and agreed with the Garda Technical Division. It is anticipated that these schemes will be fully operational in the near future.    

Clondalkin Community CCTV Update

CPLN Partnership has made a submission to POBAL for inclusion under the Community Services Programme which would allow staff to be employed to monitor these schemes. They are also endeavouring to secure Garda approval to monitoring of their cameras as a more favourable option.

The Council has expressed its ongoing commitment and support to the schemes and will continue to work with the project promoters towards the development and implementation of effective and professionally run Community CCTV Schemes. These commitments have been conveyed to the promoters.

The operation of these schemes is subject to data protection provisions including auditing by the office of the Data Protection Commissioner

The CCTV system in operation at County Hall and Civic Centre Clondalkin operates for Security purposes. The data captured is viewed only if there is an incident of risk to staff or customers, or damage or theft to property. There is a limited list of Senior Staff, Security and Architects staff with access to the data. The data is deleted after a period of 21 days.