Across the city, those with disabilities have ad-hoc access to private car parking

After a lengthy battle, Brian McKenna was allocated a disabled parking space earlier this month for the Drimnagh apartment complex where he lives. 

The management company at The Davitt has agreed to lease a spot to him, so that he can care more easily for his disabled daughter, he said.

He had been shut out. Because, while he was a blue badge holder, he was also a social tenant and the car park, the management company said, was just for the private tenants.

Now, though, for €100 per month, he has a slot. 

While McKenna is relieved to have the essential space, independent Senator Tom Clonan says he finds the cost for it baffling. 

The whole debacle should never have happened, said Clonan.

As he sees it, to create any barriers, including financial, between disability parking and someone who needs it is inexcusable.

“Disabled people face so many obstacles in their day to day lives,” he says, “whatever their condition is or whatever their challenges are.”

The Drimnagh issue does also highlight the ad-hoc approach to access to accessible disabled parking spaces in private car parks across the city. 

It is an issue likely to get more attention, as new apartment complexes shrink car parks, on foot of the push to shift people generally towards sustainable modes of transport and tackle the raging climate crisis.

And the questions of how to allocate the scarcer spaces that are left, and the role of pricing in that, become more acute. 

Different all over

At a meeting earlier this month, Dublin city councillors briefly touched on what the council’s approach is to be to car parking in its new Montpelier development, on the lands of the former O’Devaney Gardens.

There are 279 parking spaces, for the 1,046 social and affordable homes on the site.

Of those, the council is responsible for managing 110 spaces. It’ll allocate those based on need, says its parking strategy. 

That means those with a disability will be top of the list, it says. 

Next, spaces are to go to those who need them for work because of where they have to travel to and unusual hours. After that, they’ll go to households based on their size, and finally, based on mileage. 

It’s unclear whether the council is to charge social tenants for the disabled spaces. 

The strategy says the social car parking spaces are to cost between €0 and €50 (TBC) per month on a sliding scale, based on the household income and ability to pay.

Elsewhere, some private apartment complexes don’t differentiate between social and private tenants in their access to parking. 

John Fulham is on the management committee for his own apartment development, The Gallery in Donabate, he said. 

Regular parking spaces aren’t assigned, he said, but anyone who needs parking gets it – whether they are social or private tenants. 

But that’s because the cost is swallowed in the management fees, said Fulham, who is advocacy manager for the Irish Wheelchair Association, and a four-time Paralympian.

For social tenants, those fees are paid by the Approved Housing Body appointed by Fingal County Council to handle their tenancy, he said.

In the Dublin City Council area, they won’t cover those fees – which is partly why McKenna was left out.

In Donabate, people with mobility issues, who need a space near the building entrance, are provided with that, he said. 

Fulham doesn’t need that, he said. But as a wheelchair user, he does need a spot with room around it so he can open his door wide enough to get in and out, he said, and he gets that.  

Residents are accommodated according to needs, he said.

“That's just what we do here,” he said. “There could be different rules applied by different people or different management committees, and that's the challenge.”

A wider review

In March 2023, John Lahart, the Fianna Fáil TD, asked in the Dáil, “if a private provider can be compelled to provide disabled parking spaces?”

Putting in and enforcing disabled bays in private car parks – such as shopping centres and commercial premises – is the remit of the car park owner, said a response.

It came from then-Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Jack Chambers, the Fianna Fáil TD.

In April 2024, the Department of Transport published a review it had commissioned of the scheme that governs disabled parking.

It was mostly focused on permitting and eligibility. But its release did say that it would be reviewing the law in the area. 

Lahart said on Monday that access to disabled parking spaces remained an active issue on his agenda. 

He had spoken recently to his  party colleague, the Minister for Transport, Darragh O’Brien about it, he said.

“It’s more pertinent than ever because people are relying more and more on private parking,” said Lahart.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transport said on Thursday that the department “has no statutory authority to legislate for privately owned car parks”.

“The Department of Transport cannot interfere in the affairs of private landowners,” they said.

The current Dublin City Development Plan does say that, for new developments, at least five percent of the parking spaces should be accessible, with a minimum of one accessible space.

But a Dublin City Council spokesperson said that planning authorities, as it is, can only regulate the provision and design of spaces – not the charges. 

Clonan, the senator, said he thinks charging somebody to use a disabled parking space is akin to having a wheelchair ramp on a premises, and charging a tenner every time it is used. 

“Really, I think that's shocking,” he said.

Green Party Councillor Janet Horner said the council is still feeling its way in the dark, when it comes to planning for disabled parking.

McKenna lives in an apartment, which was bought by the council as social housing under the provision known as Part V. In big developments, a slice of the homes are generally sold for this.

The council has to negotiate what the conditions are within those developments, said Horner. 

“So like, do they have access to the gym and the cinema, or those kinds of things included in the development,” she said.

The council generally doesn’t pay for access to those. 

Social tenants don’t usually have an automatic right to a parking space either, she said. 

But if somebody has a genuine medical need, they should get one, said Horner, who also chairs the council’s Mobility and Public Realm Strategic Policy Committee.

“So, it's probably one of those things we just haven't thought about, but does need to be incorporated into the contract,” she says.

To bring it in-line with on-street parking – which is free for people with blue badges – Horner thinks disability parking should also be free in private car parks.

There has to be planning for the future too, said Horner.

People may develop a disability over time, or have mobility issues with age, she said. A clear plan should be put in place now, she said, to address any future eventualities.

Fulham, of the Irish Wheelchair Association, said that whether it is in private car parks or public streets in the city centre, disabled people remain an afterthought when it comes to parking.

“Dublin City Council, they're reluctant to listen,” he says.