Kilkenny hasn’t abandoned its plan to expand the number of CCTV cameras in the city.
Mayor Joe Malone raised the lack of one at the Skate Park following an alleged assault with a glass bottle there last Friday night.
A man was taken to hospital for treatment of a deep laceration to his neck.
There are already 20 garda CCTV cameras around the city which are monitored full time by personnel at the city station. And in 2019, gardaí approached the local authority with a proposal to extend this scheme by 20 more – including at the Skate Park which is on the grounds of the Abbey Quarter site.
Funding for this was sought from the council, the monies were agreed by Councillors and put aside.
However regulation changes means the project hasn’t progressed as the council’s Director of Services Tim Butler outlines; “The issue of who was going to be the data controller and who’s going to be responsible for those cameras into the future, that still hasn’t been fully resolved, so it appears that the Garda Commissioner is not in favour of the gardaí being fully responsible for them so we’re looking at other ways that they can be provided”.
He adds “So that’s at the initial stages, at this stage, but we should be coming to a resolution on it before the end of the year so at the moment those 20 cameras haven’t been installed but I would say the gardaí would have identified the areas that they would like the cameras in and should the matter be resolved to the satisfaction, either they’ll be provided with the garda being responsible for them or the local authority, but certainly we’ll be trying to resolve that matter before the end of the year”.
