Terry Brennan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister on the introduction of this Bill. I believe it will eradicate the cowboy operators.

I have not been clamped, but many of our third level institutions and universities hold open days. NUI Galway holds two open days and UCD and other institutions throughout the country also hold open days at various times during the year. If I was to park in the campus of DkIT in Dundalk I would be clamped, although there is no signage indicating that clamping is in operation. Two constituents of mine, a mother and her daughter, recently attended an open day in NUI Galway. The mother drove 160 miles to the university and had not been there previously. Her daughter was anxious to do a course of study at the university. They had a great day and came back to discover that their car was clamped. This was a traumatic experience for the mother and her daughter started to cry. I discussed the matter with the mother for quite a while. She told me she had traversed the car park for 20 minutes and when she could not find a place to park, she decided to park in an area that was available where there were no yellow lines and where her car was not obstructing traffic. When she returned to her car and found it clamped, she noticed there were at least two or three other cars clamped. That was her first time to go to NUI Galway; she did not know the parking arrangements that were in place there. She paid the fine of €60 or €80 and was declamped. I suggest consideration should be given to accommodating parking for people attending open days at our third level institutions. I am not saying people should be able to park for free but a designated parking area should be provided for visitors to the campuses on those days. Those who attend those days traverse the country. In this instance, those people travelled to NUI Galway and the mother and her daughter, a potential student at the college, left the college with a sour taste in their mouths. I do not know if the NTA has the authority to do this or if we can ask the campuses to provide an area for parking on open days, which only number two days in many of the colleges.