The deputy mayor of Galway is calling for the city's vehicle clamping contract to be terminated, claiming the present regime is causing havoc to tourism and business.
In a notice of motion before tonight's meeting of the city council, Cllr Pádraig Conneely (FG) is proposing that the council take over clamping and introduce a more humane system.
He said: "I will be asking the council to revert back to what clamping was originally introduced for - to have a free flow of traffic in a city of old narrow streets and to stop people parking on double yellow lines . . . "
He added that the private clamping company under contract to the council, Central Parking Systems Ltd, had failed in this regard because, according to a report coming before the meeting tonight, 65 per cent of the revenue from clamping is from disc parking areas.
He recalled a recent incident in the city where a clamper refused to remove a clamp from a car outside a doctor's surgery, even when requested to do so by a garda, so that a father could take a sick child to hospital.
Mr Conneely said: "Galway has become an unfriendly city as a result of the inhumane actions of the clampers, who have no consideration . . . "
