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By Sean Moriarty

Residential parking permits are being issued to people who don’t qualify for them a Killarney Municipal District meeting has been told. Cllr Niall Kelleher raised an issue at last Wednesday’s online meeting where he said that people are flouting the local laws and that Council Executive is not doing enough to stop it.

He said that unnamed individuals were successfully applying for town centre parking permits, even though they do not live there, and that they are taking up valuable parking spaces in the town centre by parking there all day.

“Why have we issued residents’ permits to people that we know, everybody knows, the cat and dog on the street knows, are not residents,” he told the meeting.

He called on the Council to urgently review the parking by-laws in the town and repeated a previous call for a meeting, specifically on parking, to held between the elected members and council officials.

Kelleher said he was specifically aware of individuals who are abusing the ‘15 minute’ and ‘Age Friendly’ parking bays that were introduced last June by the Council as part of its ‘Safe Street Programme’.

“To see individuals who have those permits parking all day in a 15-minute bay is a slap on the face of the executive and the elected members,” added Kelleher.

A new countywide parking strategy is being prepared and Council officials will meet with elected members once it's ready.

A Council official confirmed that new permits will not be issued until after the report is finalised. However, the validation date of existing permits will remain until the same report is prepared.