FREE city parking is on the cards again this year for the big Christmas shopping spree. City councillors were told that final details of how and when the free parking will work are now being ironed out and an announcement is expected shortly.
City business people will welcome the move, which helped to significantly increase footfall and trade in the city in the run-up to Christmas last year.
The news came at a meeting of the city council where a number of councillors had called for the parking incentive.
During the discussion, Cllr Gerry McLoughlin (Labour) said that free parking hours or days should be extended into the City of Culture year. “We want to show off our city and we want people to come in and see it,” he said.
Cllr Kevin Kiely (Fine Gael) said that “someone needs to have a word with the city’s four parking wardens. I’ve had 12 phone calls about them. They are waiting for people to go into a shop for a couple of minutes and they jump out give them a ticket. We will have no problem with parking in the city if this continues – no one will come in”.
Director of services Paul Crowe told the councillors the plans for Christmas parking are being finalised and details will be available shortly.
However, he rejected the claim that people who park for a few minutes are being ticketed.
“There is a period of grace of 10 minutes or more at the start of a parking period and at the end and the wardens allow that and often much more. If people get tickets after a few minutes it’s because they are parked illegally or blocking other road users,” he said.
