Laois Offaly town takes big step to fight crime with CCTV

A big step towards making Portarlington safer has been taken by a local committee who want to erect CCTV in the town.

The Portarlington CCTV Committee is in the process of applying to Laois County Council to install cameras in the town.

The Committee, which was founded in 2021, has lodged a planning application with Laois County Council to erect a 6 metre pole, cameras, recording kiosk, ducting and all associated site works for the purpose of a community based CCTV.

The application was lodged on March 24 and is at the pre-validation stage with the council's planners.

The committee was set up in 20221 by the Portarlington Business Association. At the time the group announced that the project would be operated with the full cooperation and input from Gardaí and Laois County Council.

They said the benefit to the town will be crime prevention and a reduction of anti social behaviour. 

They will be applying for a grant from the Department of Justice, but expect to have to raise funds to complete the project which is expected to cost €40,000. 

Mountmellick is the only town in Laois to have operational community CCTV that complies with Data Protection laws. There have been long running issues which have delayed CCTV schemes due to the Data Controller uncertainties.

The Data Protection Commission has a decentralised office in Portarlington.