Councillors in Fingal reach for CCTV as tool to combat anti-social behaviour

Could Fingal put up more CCTV focused on areas where there are frequent complaints about anti-social behaviour, as a deterrent? asked independent Councillor Darren Jack Kelly, in a motion at Monday’s monthly council meeting.  

Kelly pointed to official Garda figures he got last year. 

From 2022 to 2024, there were 13,463 incidents of anti-social behaviour reported to An Garda Síochána across Fingal, Kelly said.

Constituents in Swords often raise it with him, said Kelly by phone on Wednesday. 

“Everyone has the right to be safe and feel safe in their communities. CCTV plays an important part in achieving that goal,” he told the meeting. 

Kelly also pointed to the government grants available for community-based CCTV systems meant to deter anti-social or illegal behaviour.

Communities around Ireland have already availed of the scheme, he said. “There's ones in Carlow, Kerry, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick and so on.”

Research into the usefulness of CCTV in preventing and detecting crime has shown mixed results, according to Oireachtas Library and Research Service.

For its part, An Garda Síochána cautions that CCTV can “have a direct impact on the human rights of individuals. Therefore, its installation and operation must be carefully planned and its use competently managed”. 

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Within the council chamber, Kelly’s motion was well-received.

There has been CCTV in the Swords area already to catch littering in some spots such as bottle banks, said independent Councillor Joe Newman.

“I don't see why, if there are some black spots, as in litter or anti-social behaviour, that we couldn’t do the same there,” he said.

Independent Councillor Tony Murphy spoke in favour too. From his experience owning a premises with CCTV, the benefit outweighs any costs, he said.

If the council can target the right black-spot areas it will be a positive, he said. “By virtue of the fact that we have another set of eyes, be that virtual or whatever.”

On the phone, later, Kelly suggested that identifying long-running “black spots” would be a job for the Gardaí and their own official data.

Councillor Joan Hopkins, of the Social Democrats, said she supported the motion but with caveats: “We just need to be careful that we don't think this is going to solve all of our problems.”

The council has to make sure that Gardaí have the resources to review footage and act, she said. In some past cases, they haven’t had, she said.

Indeed, CCTV cameras can be a tool for prosecution, said Labour Councillor James Humphreys. But they don’t address causes or prevent anti-social behaviour.

“We just have to look across the road, across the Irish Sea, to see one of the most heavily CCTV-ed countries in Europe, that it doesn't actually solve the issue that we're talking about now,” he said.

Studies done in the UK, reviewed by the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, found mixed results. In terms of preventing crime, some found CCTV reduced thefts in car parks, but didn’t help in other situations. 

Closer to home, Dublin City Council has rolled-out CCTV in the north-inner city which went live in August last year. It hasn’t caught anybody illegally dumping yet.  

Kelly said on Wednesday that he agrees with Hopkins and Humphries that CCTV is not a solution to anti-social behaviour and what drives it.

“It’s about a deterrent to support the guards. To make you aware that you're being looked at,” he said.

Humphreys pointed out the criticism Dublin City Council has faced in recent years for using CCTV cameras from Chinese state-owned company Hikvision, given their use for surveillance in China. “It had national security kind of concerns.”

That council also faced questions about whether to, say, try to deter antisocial behaviour on a football pitch, it was really necessary to install hi-tech cameras with AI and facial recognition capabilities. 

The Hikvision Deep in Mind NVR, according to the company’s website, mimics human learning and memory processes by incorporating algorithms that improve video analytics performance, including the ability to identify human activity to a high degree of accuracy. This includes the capabilities of facial recognition.

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CCTV is already installed in “justifiable locations”, read a response to Kelly’s motion from Mary T. Daly, director of operations for Fingal County Council.

By that, she means places “where there have been repeated serious incidents of destruction to council owned public property”.

The council does not have a remit in terms of law enforcement, she said. Any CCTV has to be “necessary and proportionate” and on foot of a full Data Protection Impact Assessment, she said

There is provision in the council’s capital programmed for CCTV on council property, Daly said.

At Monday’s meeting, Kelly said that response was not the one he was after.

Said Daly: “I wish I had a CCTV so that I could use that as a prosecution method with regards to littering, I absolutely am there with you on that.”

It was actually an ideal item for the new North Fingal Local Community Safety Partnership (LCSP), she said.

“I will send it to the chair and the coordinator and see can we get it on for discussion on the north partnership committee. If you're agreeable?” said Daly.

“Thanks Ms Daly, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Thank you very much,” said Kelly, to a round of chuckles in the council chamber. 

The motion was agreed.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.