Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Houses passed a law last summer, namely, the Circular Economy Act. That included provision to allow local authorities to use CCTV to catch people littering and to use drones and bodycams to catch people dumping. The reason we did this was that people who had been caught dumping in the past had successfully defended themselves on the basis that their privacy rights had been invaded under the general data protection regulation, GDPR.

We were advised that we needed to pass primary legislation to give local authorities the power to collect evidence to convict people and we have done that. The law states that the County and City Management Association, CCMA, has to come up with a code of practice for how this CCTV will be used in a fair way that does not impinge on privacy but, at the same time, is capable of catching people. Then they will give me this code of practice and I sign it off, and it gets laid before the Dáil. I am keen for them to come back and give it to me. I telephone them all the time and ask them about their progress. They are consulting with the Data Protection Commissioner. They are having a meeting in the middle of November and at their board meeting, I expect that they will sign off on that and send me a document. I hope I can then sign it and the local authorities can then start deploying CCTV to collect evidence of people who are fly-tipping and dumping. It will be targeted on the black spots where it is happening.