Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last night, I spent two hours at a meeting of Laois County Council attended by the chief executive of the council and members of various groups from around the county which discussed this exact issue. People refer to the previous CCTV scheme for urban areas, which involved the chamber of commerce in the various towns and the Garda taking a direct monitoring role. That system worked. For some reason, the community CCTV scheme was linked to the local authorities, although I acknowledge it is based in the community.

I saw the document produced last night by the Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice and Equality. The format laid down by them is that the local authority has to be the data controller. There then has to be a data processor and people can then have access and can look at it. In fact, it can only be gardaí who have access to that to get copies of what is in the system for evidential purposes.

The system approved by the Department of Justice and Equality and the Garda Síochána referred to somebody having access in order to view what is on CCTV - this is exactly what the Department has written down. There must be a written request from an officer not below the rank of superintendent to the data controller, which is the local authority, and there must be confirmation in writing that this can happen before the officer can see it. What happens at weekends? The local authority has to have a staff member at the end of a phone 24-7, 365 days a year if it is to meet the data protection rules under the responsibility given to it. It cannot allow anyone else to access it without that specific request to the data controller. The involvement of the local authorities has put an awful ream of responsibility on them, although I know it was brought in through the policing committee.

The Garda can operate this very effectively in urban areas because the local authority is not involved. In rural areas, under the informal arrangements that applied before the data controllers came in, gardaí would come out and look at the issue straight away, for example, they would see two strange cars in the area and they would be moving on it in a few minutes. Now, we are bringing in the local authorities, and they are expressing concern that their staff will be subpoenaed to give evidence every time a case arises in court. I listened to the chief executive in my area and I understand the position. In addition, there is no funding from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government or the Department of Rural and Community Development for the ongoing costs of operating this system. Everything we are talking about comes under a capital grant to get it up and running and then, after maybe three years, the volunteers get tired maintaining the system and technology changes, and what they have is not as good.

It is a very complicated system. We put the Department of Justice and Equality on notice that we are going to raise it. We want to simplify the system given there are too many layers of people getting involved. Unless the local authority signs a consent to act as the data controller, the application cannot be accepted by the Department of Justice and Equality for funding. It is not that there is not drawdown; it is that, in certain areas, there is a block on the applications going in. We will raise that with the Department of Justice and Equality when it comes in, although not today as it is dealing with the prisons issue. I believe it is scheduled for a visit in the near future. This is of relevance to many people in certain areas of the country.

The next item is No. 1814 and 1834 concerning the Higher Education Authority providing information in regard to employee assistance helplines in higher education institutions. The January item received is a more complete version of the item received before Christmas. We will note and publish that.