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

The big problem we are trying to address in this part of the Bill is the problem of illegal dumping and littering and the fact it has become nearly impossible in recent years for local authorities to prosecute people for carrying out those crimes. We all suffer as a result. As we move around the countryside or walk on the streets, we see litter, sofas dumped in fields and so on. It has become very hard to obtain a prosecution for such offences. Public awareness campaigns are all very well but they do not work on people who are making money out of intentionally breaking the law.

We need to prosecute such offences and in order to do that, we need to have evidence and that evidence must be obtained within the law. We asked the Data Protection Commission and the Attorney General what we need to do to make it lawful for a local authority to prosecute somebody and how we can, at the same time, maintain people's privacy rights. We have to balance the right of all of us to enjoy the countryside without being surrounded by pollution against the right to privacy and not to be subject to mass surveillance all the time. The answer is to introduce provision for a very restricted form of CCTV surveillance, with as many safeguards as we can devise. For example, facial recognition and automatic number plate recognition technologies are specifically excluded by the legislation. Surveillance can only be done on a particular site for a particular period of time. The cameras must be overt rather than covert and the evidence obtained can only be used to prosecute the crimes of littering and dumping. It is only possible to use alternative forms of gathering evidence such as drones or body cameras in the case of commercial dumping, which is a very serious offence.We were advised, when we talked to the Attorney General and so on, that we could not use that for littering because it is minor offence. All the way through, our approach has been characterised by taking a proportionate approach. We have very broad support for this from the public and across all political parties. In fact, a number of Senators introduced similar legislation that did not have the degree of safeguards we have brought in. People are sick of the fact that some can make money by dumping rubbish in the countryside and cannot be prosecuted for it. We need to fix that.

There is a balance of rights. The right to privacy is not absolute and the right to live in a clean society has a value. There is a balance to be struck and this is the balance. I am sorry there are so many substantial amendments here that I cannot consider in detail. I would love to work with Senator Ruane on that. As Senator Boyhan said, I have long had an interest in digital privacy and so on and the right not be surveilled in such a way. We need these limitations. We went a very long way in this legislation to do everything we possibly could to limit the use of CCTV and to balance the right to privacy against the right to live in a clean environment. If Senator Ruane withdraws her amendments, I will co-operate with her and work constructively and openly with her to try to achieve her objectives as far as possible. That goes for Senator Higgins as well. I will work with her on the issues she raised around procurement in the coming months if she withdraws her amendments. That way, we can go ahead and not have this Bill rammed through, which I do not want.