Garda: CCTV not best way to tackle problems in estates
Chief Superintendent David Sheahan said antisocial behaviour was best tackled through interaction between gardaí and communities.
He was speaking at a meeting of the County Limerick Joint Policing Committee, where Cllr Leo Walsh had tabled a motion for CCTV cameras to be installed in all estates where Limerick County Council had rented accommodation.
Over the past 18 months, the council had spent almost €8 million buying houses in private estates that have been allocated on a rental basis to families relocated from four trouble spot city estates designated for renewal under the regeneration programme.
Mr Walsh said if the council was buying houses in private estates, it should take responsibility for the people they are re-housing side by side with people who have large mortgages.
Limerick County Council director of housing Jimmy Feane said antisocial behaviour had not been linked to families it had facilitated.
The council, he said, not being a law enforcement agency, should not be drawn into buying CCTV equipment to monitor situations not within its control. He said they had placed CCTV in a small number of estates.
Over the past two years they had “completely turned around” three problem council estates through cooperation with residents and in conjunction with the gardaí. Mr Feane said he would have grave reservations about broadening the CCTV system.
Chief Supt Sheahan said: “With serious crime we would be lost without CCTV and it plays an enormous role. I think what needs to happen in those estates where there are (antisocial behaviour) problems, is interaction with the Garda Siochána and the community rather than rushing into going to the ultimate step of CCTV.
“I think antisocial behaviour (ASBO) orders can be looked at first before taking the road of putting in CCTV all over the place.”
Mr Walsh’s motion, meanwhile, was deferred.
