407 fines have been issued to people parking in disability bays in Kilkenny in the last three years.
The issue of those who do not have the appropriate pass availing of such a space arose at the recent city municipal district meeting.
Cllr Martin Brett says there’s only one way to avoid being penalised; “These are valid, disabled parking permits for individuals who are issued with them and in the past three years we’ve had over 400 fines issued and the only way that you’ll actually get away from a situation like this is if you have a valid permit”.
He adds; “Now, they’ll cancel it once but it’ll only be once because the onus is on the driver to have a valid permit on display so if you don’t have a valid permit on display and you’re fined, that’s your problem, and it’s sad to think that people are using disabled parking spaces and people who need it can’t use them”.
As to whether or not there are enough of such spaces to avail of, Cllr Brett notes; “Obviously we will try in as far as possible to increase them as time goes forward, but it’s for the benefit of people who have a disability not for anything else, so anybody who takes advantage of that deserves to get caught and deserves to be part of the system of being fined”.
Councillors have been told that 163 penalties were handed out in 2021 with a further 122 in both ’22 and ’23 and he says of this; “I think we’re probably trending in the right direction but the numbers are still high, if you combine the three years you’re talking about over 400 fines and 400 fines is 400 fines too many”.
