Sir, – One Saturday recently, I met distraught French parents with young children whose French-registered car was clamped outside Four Courts.
To get de-clamped they rang the number indicated on the ticket using a French mobile phone. They got through to an automatic answering machine, but pressing numbers on the phone for service after that did not work with the French mobile phone (I tried it repeatedly on their phone).
Nor will the passing clamper van take payment unless clamped persons previously paid by credit card on a mobile phone. Put simply, when I arrived by chance, this family couldn’t be released. Catch 22 or Clamp 22?
We finally sorted it out using my Irish mobile phone. It had taken up to two hours of distress to the family. The parents said tourist brochures had not warned them about Dublin City Council clamping. And did I see discussion recently about raising the fine to €120? Who is responsible for this madness? – Yours, etc,
DERMOT CARNEY,
Athboy, Co Meath.