From the Galway City Tribune – Monthly parking tickets that were introduced at Galway City Council’s long-term car parks have proven less than popular – with just over 50 sold across three sites in the first few months of operation.

At the Dyke Road car park – the Council’s largest long-stay facility – just 30 of the €100 tickets were purchased up to mid-August, despite the machines for selling the tickets having been installed in April.

At €100, the monthly tickets represent a 50% saving for those parking daily in the local authority-owned car parks, for which prices rose from €5 to €6.50 per day following a decision by councillors in their annual budget for 2022.

Cllr Níall McNelis (Lab) said the Council had spent money installing the required machines at the Cathedral, College Road (Sportsground) and Dyke Road following representations he made not to “punish’ workers who had to park in the city.

“When we as a Council agreed to increase the fees, I pushed from day one that workers in the city would not be penalised. It’s not preferable but some workers in the city have no choice but to use their car to get to work.

“The monthly tickets were introduced to offset the cost for those using the carparks daily, but the uptake has been disappointingly low,” he said.

The Labour councillor said the Council needed to promote the availability of these new parking tickets as part of the problem was that very few people knew of their existence.

“It hasn’t been promoted at all really – there was a small mention of it online, but we need better than that. It needs to be advertised in all the papers, on local radio and the details of it need to be sent out to employers so they can inform their staff.

“There is no signage in the car parks either. When you look at Dyke Road, where there is almost 500 spaces, 30 is a shockingly low number. This is a win-win for everyone, because the upfront payment improves cashflow for the Council too,” said Cllr McNelis.

“Unfortunately, people do need to travel into the city by car because public transport is not good enough from certain areas. We need to ensure those who have to are not being left out of pocket.”