COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF TALLAGHT AREA COMMITTEE

Monday, March 24, 2025

QUESTION NO.

QUESTION: Councillor N. Whelan

Can the manager provide an update on the progress made to use CCTV as a means to tackling illegal dumping in the Tallaght area?

REPLY:

Following the publications of the LGMA's codes of practice for the Operation of CCTV for the purposes of Prevention, Detection and Prosecution of Waste Offences and Litter Offences South Dublin have in the first instance developed a suite of documents and procedures to ensure any proposed use of CCTV and the data recorded is GDPR compliant.

CCTV is appropriate where it is intended for deterring environmental pollution and aiding in the detection and prosecution of offences under the Waste Management Act 1996, as amended and the Litter Pollution Act 1997, as amended. CCTV can only be deployed for specific operational tasks in specific designated locations and not used for general patrol/ surveillance, i.e. a camera can only be focused on a discrete location and not a broad general area and automated number plate recognition and facial recognition devices are explicitly excluded.

To justify the necessity of implementing a CCTV Scheme for environmental enforcement issues at a specific location, evidence to prove necessity is based on the number of:

Before proposing a CCTV scheme, SDCC has to demonstrate, in accordance with the codes of practice, that less intrusive measures have been considered.

South Dublin has a listing of sites across the county in which less intrusive measures are being deployed and it is only where these less intrusive measures fail that a business case for the deployment of a CCTV scheme may be prepared for recommendation by the CCTV oversight board to the Chief Executive for authorisation. Presently we have 4 business cases prepared for the oversight board.