Thousands of euros in revenue may have been lost to Dublin City Council when motorists were treated to free parking yesterday because the meters thought it was a bank holiday.
While parking meters in the city centre were working normally, a computer "glitch" resulted in those outside the "Yellow Tariff Zone", which runs from St Stephen's Green and Fitzwilliam Square in the south to Parnell Square in the north of the city, being switched off for the entire day.
The council was unable to say how much revenue was lost but €19 million is made annually on the city's 850 meters.
"It was a programming fault with the machines which meant that they shut themselves down thinking it was a bank holiday," Dublin City Council parking enforcement officer Mr Paul McCarthy said.
Contrary to radio reports, the computer problem had nothing to do with putting clocks forward at the weekend, he said, and the timing was "pure coincidence".
Mr Neil Cunningham, the managing director of Control Plus, the company which enforces the parking regulations, said pay-and-display parking was enforced only in the Yellow Tariff Zone yesterday. However, he cautioned that motorists parking illegally, such as on a double yellow line or in a clearway, would be clamped in all zones.
The software company UTS Global had incorrectly programmed the machines to record yesterday as a bank holiday, Mr McCarthy said. The reason the meters in the city centre were not affected was that they operate on a different computer system to allow motorists pay for parking using mobile phones.
