GALWAY City Council has incurred a loss of almost €2 million in the last six years through its clamping contracts.
 
The unpopular clamping method of punishing illegally parked motorists was abolished by the City Council in March but not before it had “mismanaged” the operation, according to one city councillor.
 
Councillor Pádraig Conneely has established that the Council accrued losses of €1.9 million since 2003 on the various clamping contracts entered into by the Local Authority up until it decided to abolish the practice last March.
 
In reponse to Cllr Conneely’s query about the financial aspects of the operation, he was told that the first year clamping was introduced in the city, there was an expenditure of €582,700 involved and an income of €452,250 which involved a loss of €130,450. The losses grew each year and in 2008, it spiralled to €585,000.
 
“How these contracts were allowed to run for such a long period of years with massive financial loss to Galway City Council will have to be addressed into the future and its effect on the 2010 budget,” he added.
 
However, Ciarán Hayes, Director of Services at the Transportation and Infrastructure Department of the Council stressed that clamping had been used as an effective traffic management tool and was never a revenue raising venture.
 
He also said that changes made to the operation of clamping were implemented in 2005 at the request and agreement with City Council. These changes, then had a negative impact on the ratio of income to expenditure with the result that the clamping contract was terminated earlier this year.
 
He said that a revised clamping contract was under review at present – at the moment the Council employ a company to tow away certain offending vehicles.
 
Cllr Conneely said that contracts were the domain of the executive and were never brought before councillors, though he agreed that elected members had a say in policy making and had indeed adopted a softer approach to illegally parked cars on city streets four years ago.