Council unrepentant on Novena ticketing blitz

Date Published: 07-Feb-2013

BY BERNIE NÍ FHLATHARTA

Over 100 parking tickets have been issued to worshippers illegally parked outside Galway Cathedral during this week’s Annual Solemn Novena.

Most of the tickets – each €40 – were issued on Tuesday and Wednesday but particularly during Wednesday’s early morning session at 7.45am when illegally parked cars prevented a coach operator from parking in a designated bus bay.

And while Galway City Council are unrepentant about their actions, one city councillor has accused the Local Authority of targeting the event to raise extra revenue.

Cllr Oliver Crowe said that he and his brother, Michael, also a city councillor, had voted against a zero tolerance policy adopted last year by the Council against illegal parking.

“I am not condoning illegal parking, but there must be some leniency in cases such as funerals and for the annual Novena where cars are parked for no more than 40 minutes for each session.

“There were up to 100 tickets given out in one fell swoop and that’s not right. That our City Council Community Wardens were directed to go to the Novena and target cars parked around the Cathedral is sending out the wrong message to people coming into our city.

“Where else could people park especially earlier in the week with bad weather conditions and some elderly people trying to get to the Novena? I don’t agree with zero tolerance as we have to have some discretion and Michael and myself voted against that motion on the night,” he said.

But a spokesman for the Council denied that there was “any Jihad against the Novena or the Cathedral”.

“The coach which runs a daily service to Donegal and is authorised to use that bus bay at the Cathedral car-park couldn’t get into its spot on Tuesday morning. We also received complaints from pedestrians about cars being parked up on the footpath and which were an obstruction to wheelchair users and to the visually impaired.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune