The need for CCTV in towns in the county was raised at two different municipal district monthly meetings this week. The issue of some CCTV cameras not operating in Westport was raised at the West Mayo Municipal District, while at the Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District, a call was made for the installation of CCTV in Claremorris town to curb anti-social behaviour.
At the January meeting of the West Mayo Municipal District, Independent councillor Christy Hyland said he was concerned that a serious incident in Westport might not be caught because a number of CCTV cameras operated by Mayo County Council, separate to the Garda operated system, weren't working in a number of locations in the town.
He told the meeting that he was aware that gardaí were looking for information on some crimes and were unable to draw on the resource, as the CCTV wasn't working in areas.
He said: "It was brought to my attention that there was a car damaged in town recently and the camera in the car park was not working. The gardaí could have been able to identify a culprit if the camera was working.
“The Garda CCTV system is up and running but there are council cameras which are not working which is not good enough. It is something we have to be on top of all the time because, God forbid anyone was attacked and a camera, which could have told the story, was not working.
"We would not be happy if it was a loved one belonging to us and we saw what happened above in Offaly with the awful murder of Ashling Murphy."
Director of Services, Catherine McConnell, told the meeting that the council would look at the broken cameras which are in their control but added that they may not have the budget for their maintenance and upkeep.
She went on to say this was a problem because funding is available to install CCTV systems, but there is uncertainty over who maintains the cameras into the future, with a lack of clarity on maintenance and issues over data control and GDPR.
At the meeting of the Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District, there was a call for the installation of a CCTV system in Claremorris to try and curb anti-social behaviour.
Fine Gael councillor Tom Connolly told the meeting that CCTV was needed as there had been a number of assaults in the town. He told the meeting that he was aware of people being hit in the Square in the town, along with verbal assaults and people being hit as they cross the street.
He went on to say hat he was aware that the installation of CCTV in Ballinrobe had been a major success in in curbing this type of behaviour, and that this type of behaviour was unacceptable and he asked that the council explore options to get it installed.
Independent councillor Richard Finn seconded the motion, saying that councillors had spoken to the Gardai about it. He went on to say: "I wouldn't like the opinion going out that Claremorris is a dangerous wasteland or something like that, because the thing about it is the problem is coming from underage people and Cllr Connolly will agree with me on this, where the Gardai have issues in trying to bring these people to justice, in effect. Essentially, the general public don't want to have them incriminated at such an early stage in their lives.
"This thing goes back to education, goes back to schooling and I have no doubt and am not afraid to say it, some of the people involved are of school-going age."
He added: "Just because Cllr Connolly has brought such an excellent motion doesn't mean that Claremorris is such a place that you can't walk the streets at night or whatever, we are talking about isolated incidents. Claremorris is one of the tidiest, cleanest, consumer=friendly towns in Mayo or the West of Ireland."
