Private firm gets €2m for parking services

By Joe Leogue

Cork County Council has paid more than €2m since 2014 to a private company for enforcing parking laws in Mallow and Douglas, figures seen by the Irish Examiner reveal.

The sums paid to APCOA have come under fire from one TD, who believes the council should hire its own traffic wardens, to save the taxpayer.

Figures released to Labour Cork East TD, Sean Sherlock, under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that:

• Cork County Council has paid €2,074,833.67 to APCOA for parking services in Mallow and Douglas, for providing traffic wardens through to court prosecutions.
• €1,220,206.36 of this went towards parking services in Mallow, while €854,627.31 covers the same services in Douglas.
• 1,604 parking tickets issued since in Douglas have been appealed. 1,198 of these appeals were successful
• 2,056 tickets issued in Mallow since 2014 have been appealed. 822 of the appeals were accepted.

Mr Sherlock was also issued with figures relating to the parking regimes in Cobh, Fermoy, and Youghal, where enforcement is undertaken by the County Council’s own staff.

• In Cobh, where parking is enforced by Council staff, 1,073 parking tickets, issued from 2014 until the end of August 2018, were successfully appealed.
• In Fermoy, 542 tickets were appealed over the same time, 266 of which were granted.
• In Youghal, 167 appeals were lodged. 68 were successful.

The council also revealed the income generated from paid parking in Douglas and towns in the Cork East constituency. €5,235,715.27 was generated from paid parking in Cobh, Douglas, Fermoy, Mallow, Midleton and Youghal, from 2014 up to August 31 this year.

Mr Sherlock said the figures raised questions around the council’s decision to renew its contract with APCOA to outsource parking enforcement in Douglas and Mallow: “The fact remains that APCOA has extracted €1.2m from the local council in Mallow and over €800,000 from the people of Douglas. The people of Mallow, including myself, are asking the question as to why local traffic wardens could not have been employed by the council, at a fraction of the cost. It is complete nonsense to say that a recruitment embargo prevented the recruitment of a council traffic warden.”

Cork County Council said warden cover “is only a small part and cost of the service provided”, and that if it were to provide a similar service, it would require “considerable capital investment in IT, admin resources, legal and warden staff”.