Council halts roll out of extra CCTV in Limerick

LIMERICK City and County Council will not be expanding its network of CCTV cameras in the absence of long-term funding, it has been confirmed.

Currently the local authority is spending more than €1m a year to operate and maintain hundreds of cameras at locations in the city and in several towns and villages.

While there is a demand from local councillors and community representatives to have cameras installed at additional locations, the council says it cannot commit to installing any new cameras.

At a meeting of the Adare-Rathkeale Municipal District, director of service Caroline Curley informed councillors the current network of cameras will not expanded in the near future.

“Basically right now, we are not, as an organisation taking on the installation of anymore CCTV cameras until the organisation draws up a full strategy for CCTV,” she said in reply to a motion from Cllr John O’Donoghue seeking the installation of cameras in Fedamore village.

“There are requests coming from all areas. There is no point in putting in further CCTV unless we can guarantee that it is lawful under the GDPR regulations and that we are in a position to maintain it and have the finance to maintain it,” she said.

“While we appreciate members would like this (extra cameras installed), we won’t be installing any more CCTV until a full strategy is adopted by the council accepting the costs and ongoing maintenance costs,” she added.

A further complication is the recent departure, to the Department of Housing, of Dr Mihai Bilauca who was the council’s head of digital strategy.

Dr Bilauca also spearheaded the roll out of smart cameras in dozens of locations across Limerick in recent years

Work is underway to draft a CCTV policy which, once complete, will be brought forward to council members in the coming months.

That plan will also be subject to public consultation and will submitted to the Data Protection Commissioner before it can formally adopted.

Effectively, this means it will be 2022 before any new CCTV cameras are installed.