26 Counties residents defaulting on parking fines in the occupied 6

[T Fearon]

  Fair play to them I say. Parking up here is atrocious, so if anyone can get away without paying the fine, more power to them.

[Evil Genius]

Fair play to them I say. Parking up here is atrocious, so if anyone can get away without paying the fine, more power to them.

Parking is a source of revenue. If that revenue is reduced by non-payers from across the border, then those locals who do pay either have to pay extra to compensate for the lost revenue, and/or they suffer reduced services.

This must be the first time in recorded history that a noted freeloader like you is happy to pay more to receive less...

[Dinny Breen]

What goes around comes around...

[thebandit]

What goes around comes around...

Correct and right.

[full back]

Just clamp them, same as the fcukers round CP do.........

[longrunsthefox]

Ain't their fault the tramps with the clamps do that. Good luck to them.. I've done same down there...

[Donagh]

Presumably the money simply goes to that firm that runs the traffic wardens and not to the local roads service or whatever. Let them chase it up...

[mylestheslasher]

Have never paid for parking in the north! But sure these thing work both ways.

[T Fearon]

Evil Genius there is no "lost revenue" in this instance as such. If everyone parked legally there would be no revenue from this source whatsoever, therefore it is a windfall revenue at best. Also last year, the same "revenue" wasn't available, due to the comparative lack of 26 county shoppers in the occupied 6 counties, so the argument that I have to pay more on account of 26 county defaulters, doesn't hold water.

Now if you really want to talk about paying more due to the 6 counties being under British Diktat you could usefully start with the ludicrous annual rates bill

[Evil Genius]

Presumably the money simply goes to that firm that runs the traffic wardens and not to the local roads service or whatever. Let them chase it up...

There is no legal or practical way a parking firm can recover non-payment from people in another jurisdiction. Therefore in the end, someone will have to stump up the lost revenue, whether it be directly (from local parkers who must pay extra) or indirectly (local Council or Road Service etc)

Of course, it is also in the interests of everyone in NI to encourage shoppers and tourists etc from across the Border. In which case they should consider replicating something I saw in a small tourist town in North Wales recently, where parking was at a premium. Basically, there were a number of small car parks where you had to buy a ticket, but you could get the cost reimbursed against subsequent purchases in nearby shops and bars etc.  Away from the main road (i.e. where the tourists congregated), the car parks were regular "Pay and Display", and on the edge of town (i.e. too far for lazy day-trippers to walk), they were free. That way, everyone benefited - locals, businesses, Council and Visitors.

With a bit of ingenuity, there's no reason why NI towns couldn't introduce something similar as an incentive to cross-border visitors, with the sanction being that any Southern-registered car which still doesn't have a ticket gets clamped.

Similarly, Northern visitors to the Republic who park without paying should also face getting clamped.  

[Over the Bar]

There is no legal or practical way a parking firm can recover non-payment from people in another jurisdiction.

There is in part.  They can 'sell' the fines to a private company for a percentage of their worth.  The private company then sends a very official & ominous looking letter to the car owner which scares the bejaysus out of the gullible one and they pay the private company even tho the company has no legal recourse should they choose to ignore it.

[Evil Genius]

Evil Genius there is no "lost revenue" in this instance as such. If everyone parked legally there would be no revenue from this source whatsoever, therefore it is a windfall revenue at best. Also last year, the same "revenue" wasn't available, due to the comparative lack of 26 county shoppers in the occupied 6 counties, so the argument that I have to pay more on account of 26 county defaulters, doesn't hold water.

Now if you really want to talk about paying more due to the 6 counties being under British Diktat you could usefully start with the ludicrous annual rates bill

Balls. You said yourself in your opening post that parking locally was "atrocious". If you have a simple "free-for-all" (literally), then at best parking and driving in the busier areas will become overly congested, thereby driving away those who need convenient parking the most (Local businesses and their employees, families, delivery firms, heavily laden shoppers, the elderly, disabled etc). At worst, some people will be tempted to park illegally, which will cause gridlock at peak times, as well as being dangerous (parking on corners causing accidents, or preventing emergency services gaining quick access etc)

Therefore it has to be managed. The only practical way is by a payment system, whereby the most congested parks levy a fee, and the less congested parks are either cheaper or free. And any such management system, whether operated directly by the Council, or indirectly by a sub-contractor, must inevitably cost money. As does the provision and maintenance of car parks in the first place.

In which case, the people who must pay for this service should be the users. Otherwise, the service either gets reduced, or non-users have to make up the shortfall one way or another. Are you seriously saying that e.g. non-car owning pensioners deserve to see their rates bills increased, because a number of car-owners from outside the area won't pay their way like everyone else?

I can't help wondering whether your (uncharacteristically) charitable attitude towards these freeloaders stems from the fact that there is a "cross-border" element to this. That is, if it were visitors from GB or the Continent who were skipping payment, you'd be the first to complain?

As far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't matter where they come from, if they don't pay, they should be chased and if they can't be chased, they should be clamped, simple as.

[Evil Genius]

There is no legal or practical way a parking firm can recover non-payment from people in another jurisdiction.

There is in part.  They can 'sell' the fines to a private company for a percentage of their worth.  The private company then sends a very official & ominous looking letter to the car owner which scares the bejaysus out of the gullible one and they pay the private company even tho the company has no legal recourse should they choose to ignore it.

How long do you think it would be before word got out that such letters aren't worth the paper they're (expensively) written on? I'd guess that within six months, the cost of finding the correct addresses and sending out the letters would far outweigh whatever paltry returns it produced from the gullible or frightened.

It's like years back, when the Gardai could only issue tickets to Northern drivers who were speeding, which could not practically be pursued in the event of non-payment. i know of regular visitors to the Republic who could have papered the walls of their house with unpaid tickets. (Maybe the same applied in reverse?)

[full back]

EG has a point 
And as he says if it was someone from GB or the continent Tony would have a different attitude

[T Fearon]

I maintain that this is not a lost revenue, as it did not occur last year when shoppers from the 26 counties were thin on the ground.

Yes I am slightly amused that the freestaters are pulling a fast one here.

In an ideal world shoppers from the 26 counties wouldn't be shopping in the 6 occupied counties as this benefits the British Treasury and harms the Irish Treasury. I have no objections to people in the six counties shopping in the 26 as I would rather see the Irish treasury benefit financially than the British counterpart.

The real disgrace is that partition continues to mean boom or bust, if you live close to the border in either jurisdiction, when there should be a level playing field for all Irish citizens and businessed