Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank our witnesses for their statements and for an interesting debate so far. I have a question that is probably more for the Department to respond. Maybe the Garda representatives will also have a view. Not that long ago, the Department rolled out the CCTV community scheme. I worked with my local community scheming to try to get that scheme up and running. It was for CCTV cameras around our towns and villages to combat crime and to have this type of evidence. However, there was huge difficulty in terms of the data storage, data protection and data retention. At the time, after lots of toing and froing, I realised that the onus for that data protection and data storage lay firmly with local authorities. In my experience, local authorities were not willing to take on that role.

In this particular Bill, which is about digital recording, has that been given any consideration? This has an important role to play in crime prevention and in the gathering of evidence. It could be an opportunity. I would like the Department’s view. My experience is that communities probably missed out a lot on that scheme, because there was much resistance from local authorities to take on that role. I think that is understandable. My view is that role should not be with the local authorities. They are nowhere near geared for data protection, retention or storage. It would be much more suitable for An Garda Síochána to be responsible for that element of work.