Councillors want to put brake on illegal parking
A community warden working for Galway County Council in Oranmore ‘doesn’t take any prisoners’ when it comes to ticketing illegally parked cars.
Complimenting the community warden for being so diligent, Councillor Liam Carroll (FG) said the Council worker “would even give a parking ticket to his own mother!”
Cllr Carroll made the comments during a debate about illegal parking in County Galway, which was a problem in every county town and not just Oranmore.
The issue was so bad in Oranmore, however, one councillor has appealed to Gardaí to intervene to fine cars parked on double yellow lines and footpaths.
Cllr Jim Cuddy (Ind) said he rang the Garda Superintendent in the area to urge more enforcement of the traffic laws in Oranmore.
“What’s going on cannot be tolerated. There needs to be more enforcement,” Cllr Cuddy said.
Cllr Martina Kinnane (FF) said enforcement was one thing, but members of the public ‘need to step up’ and stop parking illegally.
Cllr Gabe Cronnelly (Ind) said there was ‘blatant abuse’ of parking illegally in disabled parking spaces.
He said this deprived disabled people who had paid for parking permits but were not getting a service.
Cllr Karey McHugh (Ind) said that the County Council should use more bollards to deter drivers from illegally parking on footpaths. But Cllr Alastair McKinstry (Green) disagreed and said they were ‘ugly’ and costly.
He said that his mother once told him that he should park on footpaths to be considerate and give more space to motorists; this was now illegal but the attitude of ‘cars first’ prevailed, he said.
Chief Executive of Galway County Council Jim Cullen said parking illegally was on a par with illegal dumping – it was ‘socially unacceptable’.
He said more enforcement people, such as community wardens, were needed in the county but added: “we can only employ people we can afford to pay and have agreed to employ” as per the budget.