Mixed Council views on crime watch cameras

July 1995

SURVEILLANCE of Tralee Town Centre by cameras as a crime prevention measure met with a mixed response this week at Tralee Town Council with some councillors welcoming the trial project as ‘a necessary evil’ and others claiming it smacked of Big Brother’ and represented an infringement of civil liberties.

Four cameras in all have been mounted in the Town Centre in a project introduced by Tralee Chamber of Commerce and Tralee Gardai on a trial basis.

Criticism of the cameras was led by Fianna Fail Councillor Johnny Wall who proposed that the Council should not give planning permission to anyone who mounted cameras on their street. Cllr Wall’s motion failed to gain the support of the Council, however, and it was agreed to allow the trial period go ahead.

Cllr Wall said the only place he knew of a similar use of cameras was in Northern Ireland which was supposed to be a war situation. He said that nobody had the right to follow his movements down Main Street and tell him what he had been eating by zooming in close enough to see what was between his teeth.

“You have to have permission to search a house,” he said. “I think George Orwell has arrived 11 years too late,” he said.

Cllr Wall said that private estates in America were putting up barriers to monitor who came in but he said he refused to accept that Tralee had to go that way. Assistant Town Engineer, John Sheehan said that the cameras were on a trial basis to test signals. Mr Sheehan said if thev were likely to be adopted, planning permission would be needed.

Fine Gael Councillor Pat McCarthy said that realistically speaking they had to move with the times. Cllr McCarthy said that cameras had shown to be a major success in the detection of crime. He said he had no problems with cameras watching him walking or driving down the town, especially on Main Street where a lot of crime had taken place. “The more the merrier, the better the result will be,” Cllr McCarthy said