Apartment-dwellers in Fingal should be able to get resident parking permits for their area, councillor argues

Fingal should be issuing resident parking permits to people living in apartment blocks, Green Party Councillor David Healy has said.

Healy introduced the proposal as a motion during a discussion about Fingal’s new parking bye-laws at the full monthly council meeting on Monday evening.

Under the council’s previous bye-laws, adopted in 2020, the occupants of purpose-built apartments can’t apply for these permits.

Healy’s request wasn’t agreed to on the night, with officials pointing to scarce public road space and policy to nudge people towards sustainable transport. 

Instead, the chamber decided to address this at a later date, agreeing to pass the amended bye-laws without this change.

Under these now-approved bye-laws, the price of on-street parking is set to go up from 1 February, Mary T. Daly, Fingal’s director of operations, told the chamber.

The minimum rate will go from €0.50 to €1, and hourly will now cost €1.70, up from €1.20 to  per hour, she said.

Off-street charges are rising too, going from €0.50 to €1 per hour, and from €3 to €5 per day, she said.

Residential parking permits will also be on the up, with the new bye-laws increasing these from €20 to €30 for one year, and from €30 to €50 for two, she said.

The council is also introducing parking charges at some coastal car parks, she said. 

After overwhelmingly negative feedback via a public consultation on draft plans to make the first hour free and charge €1 per hour up to a maximum of €5 a day, the council dialled back its proposal.

Now the plan is for parking to remain free at Portmarnock Beach’s southern car park at the Golf Links Road, Tower Bay in Portrane, South Beach in Donabate, Rush Beach, Balscadden, Carrickbrack Hill in Howth and Loughshinny Beach, slides presented at the meeting show.

And for the first two hours of parking to remain free at at Mill Street in Balbriggan, Bridgefield and the Coast Road in Malahide, Howth Summit, Portmarnock Beach car park on the Strand Road, and the north car park on Red Island in Skerries, according to the slides shown to councillors. 

After that, there’ll be a charge at those locations of €1 or €1.70 an hour, depending on the car park, up to a maximum of €5 a day.

Residential parking

One submission in the public consultation requested that the council provide the residents of apartment blocks with resident parking permits, according to a slide at the meeting.

But the council wouldn’t be proposing to change the bye-laws here, Daly said. “Owing to the higher density and volume of units contained in purpose built apartment blocks, it would not be feasible to facilitate residents permits for all occupiers.”

Purpose built apartment blocks have allocated parking per apartment as per the planning permission granted, she said. “This negates the requirement for on-street residents permits.”

Occupiers know if they have a parking space at the time of the purchase or lease, she said.

It also wouldn’t be in line with either Fingal’s Climate Action or Development plans, which promote more sustainable forms of transport, she said. “All other local authorities apply the same conditions, so we’re no different from the other Dublins.”

But Healy, the Green Party councillor, tabled a motion, requesting that the bye-laws be updated to issue the residents of apartment blocks these permits.

It wasn’t the case that all of the other Dublin local authorities didn’t issue these permits for residents in apartments, he said. “In Dublin City Council, it is possible to get a permit if you live in an apartment.”

Although, there, the fees in the city are much higher – at €400 for one year or €750 for two years – for people living in multi-unit buildings than for people living in single-family houses, at €50 for one year and €80 for two years.

Fingal’s development plan doesn’t allow a parking space for every apartment in new blocks, he said.

It’s an issue of fairness, he said. “There are people who’ve got off-street parking spaces in their houses, but they’re entitled to apply for a residents permit for a second, or third.”

But people living in apartment buildings can’t do the same, he said.

There are developments where there is a mix of houses and apartments, said Labour Councillor Brian McDonagh. “The other really important piece is access for carers.”

That shouldn’t really be an issue, Daly said, because if a carer is visiting somebody in an apartment block, the council will give them a permit. “We do that for all the carers throughout the county.”

But, the main issue with these permits is the high density of apartment blocks, she said. “We just don’t have the public road space to accommodate applications for parking permits for all occupiers and visitors.”

Introducing something like that would create a huge administrative burden too, she said.

Healy was initially going to put his motion to a vote. But he held off when AnnMarie Farrelly, Fingal’s Chief Executive proposed an alternative way forward, as she said the motion would have a knock-on effect to the bye-laws.

The chief executive asked if the chamber would adopt the bye-laws without the change, and afterwards, consider revising these bye-laws in the coming months.

“The benefit of adopting the parking bye-laws today as presented is it allows change to the charge for parking spaces to be initiated on 1 February as we budgeted for in Budget 2026,” she said. “The disadvantage of trying to change it today is we haven’t considered the consequences.”

Healy agreed to withdraw the motion, and the chamber agreed to adopt the bye-laws.