Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I can confirm that. I have not received any application from Dublin City Council or any other council. I can increase the cap by order, but I am not going to do so if asked. I want to build on the recommendations made by the joint committee and bring legislation to the House. The recommendation made by the joint committee was that the release fees should be reasonable and that clamping should not be used as a profit generating exercise. The committee recommended the prescribing of a band of release fees, ranging from a minimum to a maximum amount and that it should be a reserved function of local authorities to set the release fees most appropriate to their administrative are. That is probably a good proposal and the appropriate time to put that proposal into law is when we have the new legislation. In the meantime, I will not be granting any requests to increase clamping fees.

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