Double parking fine shock for Sunday shopper

MY wife seems by mischance to have stumbled across a new stealth tax scam operating in Cork city.

One Sunday recently she parked our car in Princes Street. When she returned to it there were no messages on the windscreen, but a few weeks later she received a fine notice from the gardaí for an alleged parking offence.

Two weeks later she received a second fine notice for the same ‘offence’ — this time from the traffic department of Cork City Council for the same date a few minutes later. When we queried this double dipping, we were told the fines were from different authorities and both must be paid. A nice revenue earner.

To compound the issue, when we queried the fact that the parking sign did not mention Sunday restrictions, only Monday to Saturday, we received two emails from the gardaí with different explanations of the sign’s interpretation. The council’s officer then answered our query on the same matter by saying that Sunday parking was included in the sign “by implication”. So, if you are thinking about parking in Cork to shop on a Sunday, remember that they employ two groups of people to do the same job at the same time. They double the fines to cover the costs of duplication and while they cannot agree among themselves how to interpret a parking sign, you should be able to do this for yourself “by implication”.

Welcome to our shopper and visitor-friendly city.

If the council is going to employ staff to enforce parking restrictions at the weekend, it would seem sensible for the gardaí to concentrate their supposedly scarce resources on tackling serious crime rather than doubling up on parking patrols.

Reading the Irish Examiner, I gather there is not a shortage of serious crime in Ireland to be investigated and solved.

Donal Fellows

Cois na hAbhainn

Bailick Road

Midleton

Co Cork