Institute of Public Administration
Pay Parking Seminar
Tullamore
April 2008



Dr. Philip Byrne of the Institute of Public Administration organised a Pay Parking Seminar in Tullamore.. More than 120 public servants, most from local authorities, listened attentively to three presentations.

Pay Parking in Dublin

Brian Riddick, Parking Enforcement Officer, Dublin City Council

Brian described the position in Dublin highlighting the scale of the challenges facing the city council – 0.6m cars and 0.8m licensed drivers. Policy is to discourage commuter travel, and encourage use of public transport using a pro-active parking management policy. There are over 32,000 parking spaces and almost 1,000 P&D machines in the city. DCC policy is to eliminate all free parking between the canals.

The Council relies on a contracted clamping and towing service for parking enforcement and enjoys the full support of local business organisations. New developments in the pipeline include cashless pay parking systems, major event parking plans, extended pay parking options and improved residents parking arrangements. Click HERE to read.

Pay Parking in Newbridge

Joe Boland, Director of Services, Kildare County Council

Kildare Co. Co. has been actively implementing on-street parking management for several years. Jo described their experience in contracted out warden parking enforcement services in Newbridge. They insisted on a full turn-key service from patrolling and fine issue to fine collection and court prosecution. All of this was supported by a comprehensive management information and customer service support system.

The importance of prior consultation with staff was stressed as a number of HR issues had to be resolved before the service could start. Contractor operates on a fee basis with no revenue or profit related incentives. The scheme involved an investment of +€432,000 to cover almost 900 spaces and generates a surplus of +€800,000 p.a. for the council. Click HERE to read.

Pay Parking: Irish and International Trends

Liam Keilthy, Parking Consultants Ltd.

Liam spoke about the universal rules of parking including that parking demand is always a reflection of activity at the primary destination; that short stay parkers will pay rather than walk while commuters will walk in preference to paying. He outlined the different technologies being used today for on-street parking – discs, P&D and virtual systems including in-car P&D.

He highlighted the following:
  • pay parking is the only effective system for rationing use of valuable parking assets;
  • good schemes improve space turnover from <2 to 6, 8 or 10 cars/space per day.
  • there is no such thing as free parking – somebody always pays
  • private cars in Ireland is growing at 5% pa and will soon exceed 2 million but we will still lag behind the +470 cars/’000 population ratios in many other EU countries.


This growth in car ownership leads inexorably to increased demand for parking and councils have little choice but to address the challenge. Click HERE to read.