Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not disagree with the Minister that clamping is a highly effective parking enforcement mechanism, provided it is practised on public roads and, occasionally, where vehicles are restricting access to a site. Clamping is, however, the only enforcement mechanism in most areas in my constituency where private pay parking is in force. The reason is that it is a highly lucrative activity.

This issue has been approached in the wrong way. We should have debated how we could design a parking system that people would accept. This would require the participation of local authorities and members of the public.

When clamping was outlawed in Scotland in 1992, landowners received a boost because ticketing was made easier. The issue was not one of enforcement but what type of enforcement would apply. England and Wales followed the approach taken in Scotland when they sought to introduce a means of regulating limited space and rewarding people for investing in the delivery of parking spaces on private land that was fair to motorists. This Bill does not take the correct approach.

I attended the briefing that was offered to Members. I knew before I asked a question on England and Wales what the answer would be, namely, that the United Kingdom does not have a written constitution.

We have a written Constitution but the right to private property is tempered by social justice in that it has to be in the common good. I do not believe what we are doing in terms of designing a parking system is in the common good. While I will not oppose this legislation, I just do not think we are going about it the right way. There is the right to ownership of private property but it is a question of how we use that private property. For example, if a person wanted to build a house and the land is not zoned and is outside an area such as a town centre, the person has to go through a process and does not have an automatic entitlement because we regulate that entitlement. There is every reason to believe we could regulate the entitlement to use or not use private spaces for parking and have a system that is designed to work.

I come across people who will avoid at all costs going into the town and village centres in Kildare because they have been clamped or have got a parking ticket for perhaps being parked for only a very short time. It is not about traffic flows; it is that the enforcement is very heavy-handed. I completely echo the points that have been made in regard to the hospitals. I am not surprised Deputy Ellis and Deputy Coppinger have referred to Blanchardstown Hospital, which is the hospital I have received most complaints about. I had a constituent who was visiting his relative but the situation got so stressful that he ended up being a patient himself. There is great pressure when people are in having tests or perhaps queuing for an X-ray and then have to run out because it is only possible to put in money for two hours. If the time goes to two hours and ten minutes, the worry for the person is whether to leave the queue to move the car. It is not as if this is bringing in money for the hospitals because, very often, the land is actually owned by somebody else and the benefit and the return goes to somebody else. It is an outrage.

The same situation arises daily in my constituency in regard to the management companies. Where someone has bought a house or an apartment in a housing estate, and the services they paid for are not being delivered and they decide not to pay the fee, they do not get the parking ticket and they then find their car is clamped - that is if they can even get in, if it is a gated development. It is not just being clamped; if the person continues the dispute, there is an extra charge added on for every day. The amounts of money being talked about are €100 or €120. However, this is not in any way connected with parking or using a limited resource and it is not about traffic management. It should be outlawed if it is not to do with that.

By-laws are another issue. I wanted two points dealt with in legislation. One is that, to take Kildare as an example, there can be two or three different arrangements in an area, whereby the local authority has pay parking and two or three different companies are managing or enforcing a particular site. The person nearly has to know who owns the land and who the enforcer is. To just put money in a meter, a person would nearly need to know the by-laws that underpin it. I believe a law that requires this kind of information is deficient. Any parking in a town or village centre environment should be subject to a set of by-laws, whether it is on private or public property, and there should be a public consultation around that. The second point is that there needs to be a change whereby by-laws can be reviewed but that this can be done in a way such that pieces of law can be taken out and reviewed, rather than the very costly and heavily administrative approach of having to review the entire set.

With regard to the payment of parking charges, tickets are issued on the street in the North and people are offered the opportunity to pay the fine within 14 days, and they pay only half of the fine if they pay within that period. This makes absolute sense because it cuts down hugely on administration and appeals and is still a means of enforcement. I was told that is not for this Bill. However, if we were talking about legislation that was actually covering the spectrum and looking at it from the point of view of what kind of parking arrangement and sanctions we should have, and in what locations clamping should be enforced, although in an entirely different way - obviously, through fines - I believe the public should have an entitlement to be included in that process. We have a supposedly reformed local government system that is supposed to have additional powers. This is one of the powers that would be very meaningful. I believe we would find that, for example, traders in many of our towns and villages would very much appreciate having an involvement in the design of something that works for them and which turns over spaces but, at the same time, is not punitive in regard to putting people off going to shop in our towns and villages. I do not think we are even at the point of talking about that.

If we are looking at this from the point of view of containment, there is no doubt there are positive aspects to the legislation, for example, the fact that people can appeal. People have come to me, having just been clamped, who do not have the €120 to pay the bill but they are not able to talk to these people. It has been my experience that, even in the most extreme of situations, they are not able to get through to the clamping company to get an answer. If that is going to change, it is certainly an improvement. However, I believe we are going about this in the wrong way and that we could do so much better than this limited approach and could have a much more inclusive approach.

This is something I have talked about at the committee which used to cover local government, arts, heritage, the Gaeltacht, transport, tourism and sport before it was divided up. The reform meant we were more efficient in covering a wider gambit but, thankfully, transport, tourism and sport went to another committee, making it a little more manageable. This is an issue that is a staple for practically every one of us here. There is a genuine issue in providing parking spaces and in having the money to provide them. However, there has to be a fair approach to how that is enforced. I think the public have to be included in the design of that because, otherwise, it creates huge resentments and does quite a bit of damage in terms of the viability of town and village centres. Obviously, this is a very limited Bill from that point of view, but I believe it would be useful for the Minister to outline whether he is considering doing something more comprehensive in regard to the overall approach to parking and the viability of town and village centres in that context.

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