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SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, March 11, 2013

QUESTION NO.11

QUESTION: Councillor W. Lavelle

To ask the Manager to provide a detailed report on the use of covert CCTV to monitor known illegal dumping blackspots; and to advise on any prosecutions resulting from any use of such technology?

REPLY:

The Council appointed a security company to provide covert monitoring in one location only in the county.  This location is not being released as the Council does not want to alert the public as to the area being targeted.  To date this surveillance has not yielded any prosecutions. The surveillance consists of 80 hours in total of which 37 hours has already been used.  The surveillance was suspended in the summer months because of the long daylight hours.  However, recent surveillance commenced again and two incidents are currently being investigated.  An action plan in relation to the remaining hours is being co-ordinated with various sections of the organisation to try to improve the results.

The Enforcement & Licensing division has two Rapid Deployment Cameras which are moved to different location approximately every 3 months.  A list of locations derived from Members, the public and enforcement staff is used to direct which location is chosen.  To date no prosecutions have resulted, but the level of dumping did reduce as a result of the presence of the camera in one location.  The footage is monitored in-house as the recordings are rotated.