Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Well, that’s another fine mess that Galway City Council has found itself in.

And it’s potentially a very expensive mess too – every month the city’s parking meters are ‘out of order’ could cost the local authority €300,000 in revenue.

So how has it come to this, that the city’s 90 parking meters are no longer accepting coins or cards and businesses are threatening to withhold commercial rates until this is sorted?

It’s a long story, but here are the highlights.

In early December, the Council announced it was launching a new parking app. So far, so good, and it was launched with much fanfare – great, another way of paying, how bad?

What the Council did not make clear at the time, was that from January 7, the app was the only show in town, and electronic card payments would no longer be accepted at parking meters. No reason was given.

What the Council did not make public at the time either, was that in the background, the company that installed and maintained the meters since 2018, UTS Technologies, had taken legal action against the Council.

This related to a tendering process, at the end of which – in April, 2024 – the contract for the management of parking meters was awarded to a rival company.

The High Court judicial review may not be heard for another six or nine months.

In the meantime, UTS Technologies said it had offered to continue to maintain the parking meters – with coin and card payment functions intact – after January 7, until the High Court judge decided on its appeal of the tendering process.

Galway City Council rejected that offer, it’s understood for legal reasons. That’s why its position shifted midweek. Up to Tuesday, it said coins would be accepted at parking meters. But from Wednesday onwards, when the penny dropped – so to speak – that ending the contract with UTS meant the machines would not work, it said the meters could not take either coins or cards.

We will leave it to the lawyers on both sides and the High Court judge to figure out the rights and wrongs of the tendering process, but on the face of it, the fiasco that exploded on Wednesday was avoidable and poorly handled by the local authority.

Then, Wednesday evening, in full panic mode, City Hall announced a ‘grace period’ of free parking in the city until January 20. This, they said with a straight face, was so the public could familiarise themselves with the new ways of paying. An alternative view might be that the ‘grace period’ was introduced so that the Council could get its house in order and sort this sorry mess – hopefully, that’s what will happen.

Surely the cost-effective thing to do would have been to continue with the existing contractor until a High Court judge ruled on the appeal of the tendering process, in six to nine months.

But by taking the nuclear option – refusing to continue the existing contract until the court proceedings finished – not only is the City Council going to haemorrhage cash because people can’t use the parking meters, it is also going to be paying tens of thousands of euro on legal advice and on High Court appearances.

And, once again, ratepayers and homeowners liable for increased Commercial Rates and Local Property Tax fees in 2025 will end up footing the bill.

Pictured: Parking: Deputy Mayor, Níall McNelis Director of Finance, Helen Kilroy, and Community Warden Paul Quinn launching the controversial parking app in December.