Mayo town bans clamping, should the rest of Ireland follow suit?

A motion to ban car clamping in Mayo has been backed by the Castlebar municipal council recently and Newstalk Breakfast shines a light on whether or not the rest of Ireland should follow in their footsteps.

The clamping byelaw was proposed and passed by Castlebar municipal council at the beginning of August, according to Newstalk breakfast.

Cllr Michael Kilcoyne said: "[it's] generating more money than some of the shops in the town."

Keith Gavin, director with the Irish Parking Association joined Shane Coleman on Newstalk Breakfast to explain why he feels clamping is not the solution.

“We have actively campaigned for years with successive transport ministers to be given the option to issue fines as an alternative to clamping,” he said on Newstalk Breakfast.

Keith believes that Ireland is “very much an outlier to have clamping as the primary method of enforcement of parking.” 

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Keith supports the initiative in Castlebar but he told Newstalk that “the council are probably overreaching to try and introduce byelaws for what will happen [anyway] on private land.” 

Issuing fines as an alternative also brings its own problems, as it has been noted that many people could avoid paying these fines and therefore evade the law, according to Newstalk.

Keith says that there are obstacles that stand in the way of enforcing such a measure: “The main impediment to parking operators issuing fines is that they cannot access the National Vehicle Driving file, so they can’t pursue the vehicle owner. 

“I did previously suggest that if a person amasses a certain amount of fines, that it could be linked to penalty points."

Keith says that there have been delays in getting any action implemented.

“We keep hitting a stone wall, Data protection is put forward as the excuse - but it’s allowed for toll operators, so I don’t understand why it’s not allowed for parking operators.

"There needs to be an alternative.

“The only method they [parking operators] have in enforcing the rules on private property is through clamping”.

According to a report by Mayo Live, clamping became a very serious issue in Castlebar. One incident in particular was highlighted where a clamper clamped the wrong car.