Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On amendment No. 36 and the subsequent amendments, Nos. 43 to 45, inclusive, 47 to 52, inclusive, 54 to 56, inclusive, and 58, I propose to extend the provisions relating to the use of cameras by local authorities and Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, to include other similar devices and to address some technical issues in the text to improve the clarity of the text without changing the intent.

TII and local authorities use CCTV cameras to monitor traffic and to assist with enforcement. For traffic management, traffic monitoring cameras are used to monitor and manage the movement of general traffic, public transport and the various different active transport modes. They allow TII and local authorities to identify incidents, accidents, unusual congestion, delays and other events, and take appropriate actions.

Enforcement cameras or other devices can be located at toll plazas or on overhead gantries along roads such as M50 for the enforcement of speed limits or traffic lane control, including the red X and move lane arrows regulatory signs. At each enforcement location the system of enforcement cameras monitors vehicles and captures necessary information such as numberplates to support this. These cameras are generally fix mounted and generate images that are used for post-image capture processing such as automatic numberplate recognition.

Some of the devices currently may not fit neatly into the definition of cameras or CCTV, for example, devices that clock speed. The present amendment will allow for a wide range of options for managing traffic while making sure that appropriate protections are in place for the sharing of data, for data-sharing agreements, for the safeguarding of data and for the directions, guidelines, standards and regulations.