Kerry County Council gets down on its hands and knees after issuing a few parking tickets for illegal parking on a cycle lane. The cars were illegally parked on both sides of the same road, making it inaccessible even for buggies and prams (File photo)
An Irish local authority has felt under sufficient pressure after ticketing cars parked illegally that it has issued a statement clarifying and explaining its actions.
Kerry County Council issue a length statement via the local media after there was fury online from motorists complaining they found €40 parking ticket fines after coming out of a screening at a cinema in Tralee.
Some of those who commented online said the decision to penalise the illegal parking, which blocked a cycle lane, as “underhand” and “bad form”, according to Tralee Today.
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The matter arose outside the Tralee Omniplex earlier this week. Illegal parking has become an issue outside the cinema on Tuesday night’s when admission prices to see movies is dropped to the special offer price of just €5.
It has resulted in so many people going to the cinema on Tuesday evenings that the centre’s car park fills quickly and those motorists arriving to find all the official parking spaces gone park on both sides of the Dan Spring Rd outside the Omniplex.
However, as the problem was worsening of late, Kerry County Council met with the cinema owners and it was agreed signs would be put out informing motorists when the car park was full and also warning them not to park illegally outside or they would be fined.
Traffic wardens were deployed on Tuesday and the warnings became a reality when a reported 30 to 40 illegally parked cars were ticketed, with the motorists now saddle with a €40 fine.
Incredibly such was the backlash from motorists who felt they should not be fined, that that council felt the need to explain and defend its actions.
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It also revealed that instead of simply deploying staff to ticket cars blocking the cycle lane and causing general accessibility issues due to illegal parking, its senior officials first visited the facility on several occasions to monitor the illegal parking.
And it was only after those visits and the erection of signs by both the cinema and local authority that the council felt justified in acting against those illegally parking.
“The area engineer visited the location on a number of Tuesday evenings and noted that cars were parked on both sides of the N86 Dan Spring Road, making sections of footpath inaccessible to buggies and wheelchairs and also blocking the cycle lane,” the statement explained.
The extent to which the council had tip-toed around the issue, rather than address it immediately with fines, is also clear from the remainder of the statement.
“The management of Tralee Omniplex was contacted regarding the illegal parking by cinema patrons and a meeting took place between the Regional Manager of the Omniplex and the Area Engineer at the cinema location two weeks ago,” it said.
“It was agreed that the Omniplex would erect signs to inform patrons when the car park is full (and) to advise patrons to use the nearby Brandon car park as an alternative.
“These signs were duly put in place on Tuesday, October 11 by the Omniplex cinema management.
“As an additional measure Kerry County Council Tralee Municipal District Operations erected signs, on Tuesday, October 18, adjacent to the Omniplex (stating): ‘No Parking on footpaths – Fines will be issued’.”
The council’s statement continued: “These signs were clearly visible to cinema patrons.
“As an enforcement measure, traffic wardens were deployed in the area last night and a number of parking fines were issued. The situation will be monitored going forward in the interests of public safety.”
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