Revealed: Cork's top 10 blackspots for parking fines

Patrick’s Street has overtaken the South Mall for the first time in many years as the top location for catching offenders in both the city and Ireland. A total of 2,884 vehicles were issued with fines for illegal parking on Patrick's Street last year – an annual increase of over 1,100 tickets for the same location.

It is more than twice the number of fines issued in the top illegal parking blackspot in Dublin – Lucan’s Main Street where 1,339 parking offences were detected last year. More than 1,200 motorists were fined for parking in a “no parking” area on St Patrick’s Street last year while 818 were caught parking in a loading bay.

Almost 500 drivers were issued with a parking ticket for parking at a taxi rank on the street. The highest daily number of fines issued for illegal parking on Patrick’s Street was 34 on November 5. In contrast, the number of parking fines issued in relation to South Mall fell from over 3,000 in 2019, to 1,866 in 2020 to 1,289 last year.

South Mall was one of the few main streets in Cork city to record a decline in parking offences last year. Cars parked illegally on Connaught Avenue, which is close to the UCC campus, had the third highest number of parking fines in 2021 – with the number of fines up 85% to 1,032.

The easing of restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic last year contributed towards a 23% increase overall in Cork. Private cars have been banned from Patrick’s Street between 3pm and 6.30pm in recent years, with access to bus lanes restricted to public transport, taxis, cyclists and emergency vehicles.

Overall, more than €1.4m worth of fines were issued last year, while Cork City Council collected just under €1.2m in revenue from the payment of fines during 2021 – a 16% increase over the previous year.

The vast majority of parking tickets were for the standard €40 fine. However, almost 4,700 motorists were hit with a €60 fine for failing to display a valid motor tax disc on their vehicle, while 395 drivers were fined €150 for parking in a space reserved for a disabled driver without a valid permit.

Fines were issued for illegal parking at over 600 locations in the city and inner suburbs which are monitored by the city’s parking wardens. There are around 8,000 paid on-street parking spaces in Cork with approximately 1,800 in the city centre area.

Income from parking fees rose by 7% to just over €2m last year. The combined income from parking fines and fees in 2021 of €3.2m is still 33% below the pre-Covid levels of 2019 when Cork City Council had total revenue of €4.8m from parking revenue.