CLAMPING - INDUSTRY UNDER FIRE:THE ORGANISATION representing the State's main clamping companies has called for an overhaul of the sector, describing it as a "dirty business" and criticising the lack of regulation.
Members of the Irish Parking Association (IPA) said they were “fed up” with media reports portraying them as “gangsters”, and said clamping would be unnecessary if the Government altered the system for monitoring parking offences. Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey is resisting calls for regulation, despite mounting complaints from motorists about “over-zealous” clampers.
IPA director and Euro Car Parks chief executive David Cullensaid parking enforcement firms did not want a system that often put their employees under attack.
Some parking control companies now issued knife-resistant, protective clothing to staff as standard, and Mr Cullen said there were many instances of clampers being abused. One individual ended up in a Dublin hospital on life support, allegedly as a result of a beating he received.
Mr Cullen said clamping was instituted because private property owners including CIÉ and the HSE had wanted a fast and effective deterrent to illegal parking. But he said most clamping would be unnecessary if member companies had access to the National Vehicle Driver File (NVDF), maintained by the Department of Transport in Shannon.
Access to this would allow the industry to issue a fine instead of clamping vehicles, and vehicle owners could be pursued for fines and costs in civil courts, he said.
The IPA, which represents most of the biggest names in parking control, including Nationwide Controlled Parking Systems, Euro Car Parks, Apcoa and a number of larger local authorities, wrote to Mr Dempsey last April asking him for access to the driver file, but he refused.
The Minister, who has engaged in a bilateral agreement to share details on car ownership with authorities in Northern Ireland, said providing the information to private parking control companies here would breach privacy rules.
In a written reply to the industry in June, Mr Dempsey said his department “must always be conscious of maintaining the confidentiality and protecting the privacy of individual vehicle-owner records on the NVDF”. He also cited the Data Protection Act and said any “irregular use of the data puts the overall integrity of the system at risk”.
In a series of Dáil questions in July of this year, Mr Dempsey told TDs Michael D’Arcy and Brendan Howlin: “The practice of clamping or the removal of vehicles on private property does not come within the scope of Road Traffic legislation, and I have no plans to regulate in this area.”
A spokesperson for Mr Dempsey said clamping on private property was essentially a dispute between private bodies.
But Labour Party transport spokesman Joe Costello has accused the Minister and the Government of ignoring “a serious situation”. Mr Costello said he was familiar with legislation on the regulation of private security staff, which was an issue of concern, particularly in relation to doormen at nightclubs. He said he believed each clamper should be individually licensed, and there should be a statutory code of practice and a statutory appeals process.
Fine Gael transport spokesman Simon Coveney said he believed there was a role for clamping of vehicles in cities where those vehicles were blocking vital transport arteries. But he said clamping in parking bays where the time on meters had expired was unnecessary and reform should take place.
Clamping, he said, was akin to an extra sanction, and he compared it to penalty points which were an additional penalty to a fine. It would sometimes be necessary for a motorist to park on double yellow lines on a corner, he suggested.