Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to primarily focus on CCTV and its community aspects. I welcome these provisions. It is a good idea to put this into the realm of the State. That protects everybody involved. Community organisations in my area have a great fear of transgressing the protocols, in particular GDPR, and other data protection laws. It is something they worry about.

However, while CCTV has a role to play, I have a great fear of the Big Brother aspect. I worry about the notion of CCTV. I recognise what the GRA said about it being a tool rather than a primary source of crime prevention, but I worry about it. In our nearest jurisdiction, the UK, it is used to an extraordinary extent. It is oppressive on the population there.

Who will prevent that from happening? Whose role is it to ensure that we do not have a proliferation of CCTV that will create all kinds of problems and infringe on people's rights to privacy? How will it operate between An Garda Síochána and local authorities? Who is the ultimate arbiter? For example, if a local authority does not want to co-operate, would that create problems? If a community wants to run a scheme that objectively makes sense but there is not buy-in from the local authority, does that mean it cannot go ahead? By the same token, if there is not buy-in from An Garda Síochána, does that prevent the scheme from going ahead? Who is the safeguarder and who is the final arbiter in operating a scheme?