Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister announced that a total of €566,000 has been approved, but the fact is he committed to €1 million per year. The problem is not that community groups do not know the regulations involved. The problem is that they know the regulations all too well and they know the difficulties with them. It is not possible for some communities to get together to put in an application because, for example, they might be too big or might not have somebody driving it forward. Moreover, it is not based on crime statistics or on need. There is huge difficulty.

Another difficulty, of course, is the idea that the local authority is the data controller when this is for the purpose of fighting crime. The local authority is not a crime fighter and it really should be the Garda Síochána that has full control of the images, as it does in one particular scheme I know of, which was not funded under this programme but works very well. Nobody has access to that except very senior gardaí in the station.

Much more needs to be done on this. It cannot be dependent on one or two communities that have the wherewithal and the ability to fund the remainder of the scheme to get this up and running. It must based on where schemes are needed and on the crime figures. That is the basis on which CCTV should be provided.

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