St Patrick's Street is Cork blackspot for parking fines with over 3,000 offences in past year

There were 3,445 offences on Cork's St Patrick's Street this year. Picture: Larry Cummins

The number of fines issued for parking in Cork City's bike lanes has halved, with just over 40 fines issued for such offences.

New data shows that the issue remains largely unpunished, despite several vocal campaigns on the matter.

Cork City Council's newest figures show some 43 fines were issued for parking in, or obstructing, a bike lane in the 12 months ending October 31, accounting for just 0.09% of all fines issued. 

Some 48,000 parking fines were issued city-wide in the period from November 2021 to October 2022, with St Patrick's Street emerging as the top parking ticket blackspot this year. 

Offences surged once Covid-19 lockdowns were issued and almost 10 tickets were dished out on the city's main thoroughfare every single day.

The 48,025 tickets issued by wardens compares to 29,796 issued in the same period 12 months earlier, which coincided with Covid-19 lockdowns, closed businesses, and more widespread remote working.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

The new figures show that the top five parking blackspots in the 12 months to October 2022 were all on the city centre island, and included:

• St Patrick’s Street — 3,445 offences; 
• South Mall — 1,923; 
• Cornmarket St — 1,203; 
• Grand Parade — 1,176; 
• and Fr Mathew Quay — 954. 

St Patrick’s Street accounted for just over 7% of all parking offences, South Mall accounted for 4% of the total, Cornmarket St accounted for 2.5%, Grand Parade was 2.45% of the total while Fr Mathew Quay accounted for under 2% of all fines issued in the city.

A breakdown of the offences shows that failure to display a valid disc was by far the most common offence, with 12,580 fines issued, accounting for just over 26% of all fines.

Despite calls from cyclists and some city councillors for a crackdown on parking or obstruction of bike lanes, just 43 fines were issued for the offence in the period November 2021 to October 2022.

The next-most common offence was no current licence disc displayed, which accounted for 7,745 fines, or 15.5% of the total, with the third most common offence, no parking sign, leading to the issuing of 4,828 fines, just over 10% of the total.

A total of 4,650 fines were issued for parking in a loading bay, accounting for just over 9.6% of all fines, with 2,240 fines issued for parking on double yellow lines, accounting for just over 4.6%.

However, despite calls from cyclists and some city councillors for a crackdown on parking or obstruction of bike lanes, just 43 fines were issued for the offence in the period November 2021 to October 2022.

It’s a decrease on the enforcement activity given that 71 fines were issued for the offence in the period August 2020 to July 2021.

Meanwhile, the number of residents' parking permits issued by the council has fallen by around 25% in the past year, due in part to the introduction of a more robust policy designed to curb abuse of the system.

Figures show that from January 1, 2021 to December 8, 2021, some 4,602 permits were issued, but that figure fell to 3,310 permits issued from January 1 to December 8 this year.

The policy was adopted last March arising out of a review of the entire residents parking permit system.

It has led to long delays in the issuing of permits, which officials said was mostly down to incomplete applications, which councillors said should ease soon.