New CCTV cameras aimed at catching people in dumping in Dublin city centre will only be able catch people if they dump waste from their car.

Legislation was passed in 2022 allowing local authorities to set up CCTV cameras in dumping hotspots.

Officials have spent the past two years considering how best to implement the new laws but Irish Times journalist Olivia Kelly said they quickly realised GDPR rules meant they would be working “with at least one hand behind their back”.

“What they’ve figured out is that you can only use it to identify car registration numbers and not to identify people who are walking down the street,” she told The Pat Kenny Show. 

“So, that means that if someone walks down the street, blatantly past the camera with a big sackful of rubbish or a small supermarket bag full of rubbish and flings it on the street and walks on - they can take a bow in front of the camera and the council can do nothing about that. 

“If someone comes up in a car and flings it from a car, the council can take the car registration and can pursue them that way.” 

Full rubbish bags on a pavement. Picture by: Walkabout Images / Alamy Stock Photo

It all means some have questioned how many people the cameras will actually catch illegally dumping. 

“You can’t trawl through that footage to try and catch someone who might be illegal dumping,” Ms Kelly said. 

“You can only focus on cars and that really leaves the council in a position… where they may not catch very many people because it’s not an area with very high car ownership.” 

File photo of a CCTV camera. Image: Steve Parsons/PA Archive/PA Images

Essentially, it means if someone were to park around the corner from one of the cameras and carry their rubbish to the dumping hotspot, no fines would be issued as a result. 

“You’d be totally fine if you did that - not to be encouraging people to do that - but nothing could happen to you,” Ms Kelly said. 

There are strict rules about when and where the cameras can be put up. 

They must be in an area with a lot of dumping and the council must be able to prove that other methods have tried to deter it. 

Three spots have been chosen - all of them in the North Inner City. 

“The cameras are going to be on three streets and they’re all in an area between the North Circular Road and Mountjoy Square,” she said. 

“The three streets are Belvedere Place, Sherrard Street Lower and Summer Street North.” 

Anyone caught dumping can be issued with a €150 fine on the spot or up to €4,000 if convicted by a District Court.

Main image: A pile of rubbish bags. Picture by: PjrNews / Alamy Stock Photo