Tipperary County Council to collect over €3 million in parking charges and fines in 2024

Tipperary County Council estimates that it will bring in over three million euro from parking in 2024.

According to draft budget document, the local authority expect to bring in €3,115,400 from parking charges and fines.

However, they expect to spend €2,391,166.

Broken down, this means the council expect to spend €725,146 on enforcement, €280,254 on operation of street parking and €650,151 on the maintenance and management of car parks.

They expect to spend a further €735,615 on service support costs.

At the recent budget meeting, many councillors called for a standardisation of parking charges across the county.

The Director of Services for roads at Tipperary County Council said he is in favour of standardising parking charges. Marcus

O’Connor told elected members that parking is only charge not standardised in the county.

“I think there is a very strong case for synchronising it, and we will do that, said Mr O’Connor.

However, he also said parking charges were a “reserved function of districts”.

This means that it is up to each municipal district to set charges, but the council can put together a policy.

The issue was raised by councillor Michael Murphy, who said people have noticed it cheaper to park in some parts of the county than others.

“Parking is something we do need to look at, we do need to get right, and we do need a policy,” said Cllr Murphy.

Cllr Siobhán Ambrose acknowledged that parking charges are a ‘significant’ source of income for the council. But she said ‘equalisation’ was important “in the interest of fairness.”

Cllr Ambrose pointed out that it costs around 70 cent more to park in Clonmel than Nenagh.

The south Tipperary councillors were supported by many of their colleagues. Mairin McGrath said she could not understand why it would be cheaper to park in the north of county.

“I don’t know how that is fair or justifiable,” said Cllr McGrath.

Cllr Seamus Hanafin said the reason is because differing charges are a policy from when the council was divided into north and south.

But he said he expected the issue to have been resolved in this budget.

“They should be the same everywhere,” said Cllr Hanafin.

CASH OR CARD?

Cllr Ambrose also asked how many machines in the county accept card.

Mr O’Connor replied that less than 20 of the 284 machines in Tipperary are cashless. He said the council had no intention of upgrading the machines as each one would cost in the region of €65,000.

“The cost of upgrading would be significant. I’m not sure it would be a good investment,” said Mr O’Connor. Mr O’Connor said that there has been good uptake of people paying for parking through the app.

He said it is faster, and drivers do not need to go back to the machine if they need more time.

“I think the app is the way forward,” said Mr O’Connor.