Company earns €1.4m for collecting coins from parking meters

One company is coining it from the collection of coins from pay-and-display parking meters around the streets of Dublin.

Dublin City Council has confirmed that it paid an Irish wing of international security firm G4S over €1m last year to collect coins from city council parking meters.

Figures show that in the last quarter of 2014 alone, G4S Cash Solutions Ltd received €265,668 for the work. This followed payments of €208,273, €272,471, and €395,424 in the other three quarters of 2014.

The €1.14m paid to G4S last year works out at over €3,126 per day.

G4S Cash has operated the service over the past three years but the contract is due to come up for renewal in the second quarter of this year, where it will be open for other companies to tender for the work.

A Dublin City Council spokesman said yesterday: “Another contract was in place before this one. Dublin City Council would not have the staff resources to carry out this work directly.”

Last year, the council raised €24.1m from paid on-street parking. It raised €24.01m in 2013.

Over the last four years, the council has raised €96.8m from paid on-street parking.

Around 25% of the paid on-street parking income last year came from cashless alternatives such as Parkingtag, with around €18m coming from coins collected by G4S.

Independent councillor Mannix Flynn said he would ask the city council if there is a way to collect the coins without incurring the “huge expenditure” by employing a private firm to do the work.

“I would be asking is there another way that would avoid it becoming a security nightmare or the collection being an unnecessary financial burden,” Mr Flynn said.

However, he recalled that attacks on Dublin City Council staff collecting coins from parking meters was a problem when they had carried out the work.

Last year, a separate Dublin City Council-employed firm, Dublin Street Parking Services, was paid €6.64m to provide clamping services to the council.

In 2014, the firm clamped 56,601 cars, or 155 cars on average every day. Over €4.24m was raised last year in de-clamp fee revenues.

The most recent accounts for G4S Cash Solutions Ltd show that it employed 625 people in 2013, recording revenues of €36.5m and pre-tax losses of €11m. This was mainly due to exceptional costs of €6.94m relating to restructuring.

The UK-based G4S is the largest security firm in the world and was at the centre of controversy arising from its security contract for the 2012 London Olympics.