Working group says major legal changes may be needed before cameras are used to enforce offences such as illegal use of bus lanes and bus gates, and raise legal issues around data privacy and who can install cameras. Minister of State with responsibility for Road Safety, Sen Canney, and Minister for Justice, Jim OCallaghan, welcomed the publication of the National Safety Camera Strategy, but the authors of the so-called strategy, which is formatted more like a scoping report, say it was outside their remit to look at the legal issues around their recommendations. The recommendations, which have Government acceptance, were issued in a Department of Transport press release this afternoon and in the report, which is now published online.The strategy outlines what it calls a partnership approach to road traffic cameras with two different national bodies Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and the National Transport Authority (NTA) and local authorities involved with the installation of the cameras and enforcement split between An Garda Sochna for safety-related offences and the NTA for traffic management offences, such as parking or driving in bus lanes, or illigally entering bus gates. The Department of Transport said: The Strategy proposes that TII takes responsibility for the management of fixed and average speed cameras, in partnership with An Garda Sochna, who will continue to be responsible for the enforcement of camera-detected speed offences.The NTA will assume the primary responsibility both management and enforcement functions for urban traffic management offences. This approach was developed by an inter-agency working group led by TII and was agreed by the Road Safety Leadership Group, chaired by Minister Canney, which is driving implementation of the Road Safety Strategy, the Department said in its statement. The Department added: To ensure effective and efficient implementation of the Strategy, the Oversight Group will be delivery-focused and agree at its first meeting an immediate set of short-term actions to start implementation. The Group will report on its progress to Minister Canney and the Road Safety Leadership Group.There is significant concern from Gardai and other State bodies that camera-based enforcement especially if rolled out quickly will overwhelm the Garda Fixed Charge Notice system and the Courts when a percentage of the fines are appealed. This is based on local experience of the rollout of cameras and international experience in countries such as Finland, which has 1,100 speed cameras but many are left dormant.The Helsinki Times, an English-language online newspaper, last year reported: Finland has around 1,100 speed cameras, but only a fraction are operational at any given time. There are approximately 900 older grey box-style cameras, with just 160 active units among them. Of the 200 newer, slim-design cameras installed in recent years, only about 120 contain functioning equipment.The main issue is not the cameras themselves but the capacity of the police to process violations. Police Inspector Tuomo Katajisto from the National Police Board said that many cameras remain switched off to prevent overwhelming case backlogs, the news website reported, quoting Inspector Katajisto as stating: We could take many more photos of speeding drivers than we currently do. But if we keep all cameras active, cases would pile up and expire before we could process them.The new Irish strategy outlines how a 2023 report from the Judicial Planning Working Group issued two related recommendations to consider alternative enforcement mechanisms that do not involve the use of Court / judicial time; and for the Department of Justice to carry out a review of existing legislation to establish if other administrative means could be employed, but no substantive work has apparently been carried out since. The strategy published today said that the Judicial Planning Working Group recommendations could provide an advantageous opportunity to divert camera-detected traffic management offences from the Courts system, before outlining that all offences which are killer behaviours that contribute to fatalities and serious injuries on Irish roads should remain under the enforcement of the Gardai and the Courts system.National Safety Camera Strategy Working Groups remit did not include legal issuesThe strategy outlines: While the remit of the National Safety Camera Strategy Working Group did not include a legislative review, a number of legislative considerations were noted by stakeholders throughout the development of the Strategy.To expand the scope of offences that can be enforced using cameras beyond the initial list of speeding, red light running and bus lane violations, it will be necessary to amend Section 81 of the Road Traffic Act 2010 to include offences such as mobile phone use and non-wearing of seatbelts, it said. Any such amendments should be commenced on a phased and incremental basis, learning from experience and based on the capacity of the enforcement system.But while the working groups remit did not include legal issues, they raised a number of concerns, including whether legislation is required to allow the respective public body to deliver the safety camera programme on regional and local roads (and possibly national roads, depending on the public body), The need for a review of legislation to confirm whether cameras can be turned off for certain periods; and The need for new legislation to allow the respective nominated public body to issue FCNs for traffic management offences; The report of the WG on Camera Enforcement of CertainTraffic Offences refers to the need for new legislation, likely both primary and secondary legislation, and includes other legislative considerations in Section 6 of its report.On data privacy, the working group also had concerns on if legislative updates are needed to enable data sharing and to allow the nominated bodies to install cameras at scale, in light of data protection requirements.