CCTV may not be the solution to illegal dumping?

By Dan Walsh at Wexford County Council monthly meeting

Wexford County Council Environment Section recently held a public consultation seeking to use cameras (CCTV) for the sole purpose of preventing litter and illegal dumping and the enforcement of the Litter Pollution Act, 1997, and the Waste Management Act, 1996.

The issue was raised at today’s Wexford County Council meeting, chaired by Cllr Joe Sullivan in Carricklawn, Wexford.

Cllr Barbara Anne Murphy noted that the report was approved last November and again asked when the CCTV for illegal dumping would be operational.

Social media showed widespread dumping at Brownswood near Enniscorthy last weekend.

Submissions to the report proposed CCTV sites at Turret Rocks and Esmonde Road, Enniscorthy and calls for “The proposed use of CCTV for 24 hours per day” and added; “Environment staff currently carry out hours of patrols.”

It was also proposed to use CCTV to cover dog fouling in Wexford town, Bring Banks and “on-call and out of hours patrols for environmental staff in tandem with the use of CCTV.

Cllr Jim Codd said there were “trailer loads of rubbish at the old railway station in Bridgetown,” and he added that “you could get a suite of furniture any day in the week.”

Wexford town-based Cllr Biddy Walsh recently was amazed at the amount of dumping on the way to Taghmon. “I couldn’t believe it. It (rubbish) was everywhere,” she gasped!

Cllr John Fleming said CCTV will solve very few problems. “Do it the old-fashioned way, go through the rubbish and bring the evidence before the courts,” he suggested.

Director of Services Eamonn Hore told the members that the Council cannot ‘name and shame’, but he emphasised it is not all “doom and gloom” and pointed out that districts were “getting gold, silver and bronze medals” in the recent National Tidy Towns’ awards and had improved their markings in the IBAL awards.

County Secretary Michael Drea said the GDPR data surrounding CCTV is very detailed and must be legally compliant to progress to a final option.

Cllr Jim Codd returned to the discussion and asked about road signs to say that cameras were on the road. The public must be informed that cameras are present. He complimented community groups picking up litter.