Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for setting out the background to this legislation. Fianna Fáil, for its part, supports this long-awaited Bill, which will finally provide the legislative framework for the clamping of vehicles on public and private land. The legislation will ensure that all clamping activities are carried out in a fair and transparent manner and will protect motorists, legitimate clamping companies and, in particular, landowners, who in many cases find themselves having to deal with the difficulty of illegal parking which is causing an obstruction to their businesses or the activities of others.

The Bill introduces consistency to the clamping regime for the first time, whether the clamping is on public or private land. As the Minister has stated, legislation is already in place governing clamping on the public road and on land occupied by certain statutory bodies. However, this Bill will also regulate clamping on private property. It sets up a new regulatory regime which is balanced, adequate and a proportionate response to the issue that arises. It does not seek to overburden those who will ultimately pay for the system and this is positive. In the past, we tended to set up agencies that became almost self-fulfilling and required an extensive amount of money to maintain. Often the focus of what that entity might ultimately do was lost.

It is very clear that the approach taken by the Minister's predecessor - having the consultation on the heads of the Bill at the outset, allowing people from a committee perspective to address their concerns, listening to the various stakeholders, the people who would ultimately be affected by the introduction of the legislation, allowing all of us in a collective way to put our best thoughts together and feed that back to the Department officials and trying to come up with a comprehensive solution to a difficult problem - is a model for the future. I have always been a strong advocate of our Parliament having a much greater role in the development and passage of legislation. It is a source of concern that there has not been that level of political reform which accepts that it does not matter from where a good idea comes. It is not enshrined in the hands of the Government to have to come up with all aspects of legislation. People are elected here for their abilities by the citizens of the State. It is worthy and right that Members, regardless of their party affiliation and people of none, get an opportunity to feed into legislation. Often, the difficulty from a Government point of view, when it brings a Bill to the House, is that it is the combined wisdom of the Minister and his officials and they do not like to take amendments because it impacts on other elements of the legislation. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, its officials and the Minister have been very good at recognising that one should engage with stakeholders in the early stages and listen to people's views before becoming entrenched in the heated political battle, if that is to be the case. This way one ends up with legislation which has a broader acceptance and resolves many of the problems that often happen at a later stage. That is very welcome.

I am also conscious that for the senior civil servant involved in the development and drafting of this legislation, Mr. Maurice Treacy, this will be his final piece of legislation. He is retiring shortly and I wish him well. I wish to recognise in this House his abilities and the fastidious manner in which he goes about his work in order to ensure that the great detail is covered. He is one of the stalwarts of the Department and we wish him well. I will not be complicating his life on this particular Bill in any shape or form because it has the distilled wisdom of all in this House and hopefully we can get it passed relatively quickly.

The Minister rightly identified that the Bill seeks to address and balance the rights and responsibilities of all concerned. This is hugely important. Sometimes people make mistakes. Sometimes people park in inappropriate places inadvertently. We do not want to over-penalise them. There are others who are serial offenders and we need to send them a message. There are people whose property rights are impacted in a very negative way by the actions of others. It is right and appropriate that there is a balancing exercise. That is why the appeals mechanism that is in place is one that requires the operator or the owner, in the first instance, to set out the first line of defence. They have to explain and to review the decision that was taken. Then there is an independent appeals process. The National Transport Authority, NTA, is the appropriate body to deal with this. I am happy that this part of it is sorted.

I am pleased that there is a cap in terms of what someone can charge. There were some outrageous practices, particularly in apartment complexes and other private properties, where, in essence, it was an effort by the owner to abuse the position they had as owners of the property. People were parking in places where there was no nuisance created or the owners had a site that was subject to people parking on it and the owners were abusing this situation by charging ransoms for unlocking people who parked there, inadvertently in some cases. The Minister will be aware of some of the issues concerning tourists, in particular in tourist destinations, where the unsuspecting tourist parked his or her hired car, not knowing the local situation. Someone would then look for a ransom of hundreds of euros to declamp the vehicle. The clampers were watching for someone to park and jumping on it straight away. This sent out a very negative image of Ireland. It is right that we deal with this.

Vehicle clamping in public spaces is in force in the majority of cities in Ireland. The services are operated in those cities by private companies on behalf of the local authority. The employees of the vehicle clamping company are entitled, as the Minister said, to clamp and declamp vehicles and to issue clamping notices where vehicles are in violation of the parking regulations. The number of vehicles clamped in Dublin, I understand, in 2013, on public land, was 56,285. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has stated that clamping is one of the most effective ways of ensuring that parking laws are respected in urban areas. I agree with that. Some of the fixed penalties do not act as a deterrent to the same extent. Some people will get caught and they will pay, but there is nothing like the nuisance - I know it well - of returning to your vehicle and finding a yellow clamp attached to it. In many cases, it is the ultimate signal and encourages a change of behaviour.

Clamping services are also common on private land, in car parks of hotels, hospitals, universities and shopping centres. This is to discourage long-term parking at the expense of staff, customers and, in particular, clients. Clamping on private property is currently not covered by legislation. The legality of clamping on private property has always been unclear. There has been some concern about this, because of the inherent property rights of landowners and their recognition in the Constitution. I hope this legislation is successful in addressing this concern. If it is not, and someone seeks to test it in the courts, one would wonder what can be done ultimately. I hope it will stand the test of time because it is a very considerable nuisance.

Emerging out of the passing of this legislation, and this is why I am pleased with the methodology in place, the encumbrance will be placed on the person who owns the land to manage the clamping, rather than licensing clampers which would not have been a good practice. A sort of bounty hunter system would have been created which would not work. I am hopeful that we will see the emergence of car park management companies that will do this in a structured and coherent way and that we will not have the type of fly-by-night operation I was concerned about had we gone down the road of licensing.

I realise some of the larger parking management companies provide these services in a structured and controlled way and hope that is what will emerge as a solution to this problem, but it remains to be seen how the owners of the various properties will proceed. The larger supermarkets manage this issue well and generally have an effective system in place. However, in some smaller apartment complexes there are operations which may happen to use ransom strips and so on which could become problematic. At least now we have been left in a situation where there is a recognised cap and the ability of a person to appeal is perfectly clear.

Perhaps some guidelines might be drawn up on what procedures might be expected for an appeals process. I imagine the National Transport Authority will come forward with some guidelines for its officers in this regard. Some particular examples have been brought to my attention relating to lands owned by CIE around some railway or DART stations. In some cases a person had failed to get a ticket from the ticket machine because it had malfunctioned. I know that in the past vehicles have been clamped or people fined for not having a ticket in these circumstances. Obviously, ticket machines do not operate all the time and there will be periods when they are broken. Such issues need to be clarified in terms of what constitutes a legitimate appeal. Other cases have involved people with disabilities or elderly persons who were unable to operate particular equipment. We need a comprehensive set of guidelines to assist the appeals process in order that people will know in advance the heading under which they might seek to make a valid appeal or have an appeal upheld. Obviously, that is a matter for the NTA and I have every expectation that it has the necessary expertise to treat the rights of both sides involved in a balanced and proportionate way.

I thank the Minister for continuing the process set in train by his predecessor. It has followed a methodology involving everyone in Parliament not only in the passage of the legislation but from its inception when the heads of the Bill were produced with a non-partisan and interactive approach. This bodes well for future Governments that adopt such methodology. It will ensure we can proceed with legislation in such a way that by the time we enter the Chamber most of the issues will have been ironed out.

I wish Mr. Maurice Treacy all the best and thank him for the service he has provided for the State during his time as a senior civil servant.

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