Parking Levy Details Announced

Seth Brundle

Parking levy due in five cities in 2009

Wednesday, 19 November 2008 09:20
The Government's new €200 workplace parking levy is to be introduced in five cities from next January.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan announced the levy on Budget day last month.


The details of the levy will be published in tomorrow's Finance Bill but RTÉ has learnt that it will apply in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford and will cover more than 50,000 car park spaces in the private and public sectors.



There will be special concessions for part-time workers and shift workers, while drivers with disabilities will be exempted from the measure.
Employees who share car parking spaces will be levied at a reduced rate.
The new levy will have to be collected by employers in the five cities through payroll deductions.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1119/budget.html

andrewh5

Phew, I work in Dun Laoghaire

Berty

Unbelievable. If my employer was in one of those cities and I have a company car. I have to pay money to the government for the car and then money to the government to park the car.

galwaytt

OK, here's a few to watch for starters:

Galway County Council
Galway City Council
Revenue Commissioners (Galway)
NUIG
UCHG (HSE)
Dept of Defence
Dept of Marine

All have huge, city parking for their employees. CoCo in particular I'd single out as an 'offender', given that they DENY access to the car park, for persons transacting business with the council!! Time for that chicken to come home to roost, methinks........furthermore, this august body is the one that dictates how many parking spaces you must provide in your development through the planning process.............irony, don't ya just love it !

Seth Brundle

andrewh5 wrote: »

Phew, I work in Dun Laoghaire

You are confident that it won't stretch out there?

bruce wayne

but when it says Dublin....were in Dublin are they talking about ???

is that city centre only (i.e. dublin 1, 2 & 4?)
is it all Dublin with postcodes (i.e. 1 - 24?)
is it Dublin city and county ?

I'm in Dun Laoghaire as well, which is county Dublin...am I exempt

Also how about if an employeer charged you €1 a year for your space...technically then your space is not provided so does this mean...no levy ??

Anan1

bruce wayne wrote: »

Also how about if an employeer charged you €1 a year for your space...technically then your space is not provided so does this mean...no levy ??

It's subsidised, so it's still a benefit.

Zulu

...isn't Dublin 3 city centre?

Berty

Who is going to enforce this?

What if your employer gives you a space in a public car park for which they pay. How is the government going to know?

Mitch Connor

i don't understand this at all.
Firstly, I'll assume this applies to all Dublin post codes - 1-24.

At my office, there is a company car park and the people working here can park there for free. A space is not guaranteed and none are set aside, it is first come, first served. Will i get caught for this, even though I am parking on private property in a space that is not provided solely for me?

Mitch Connor

quirke_folder wrote: »

Who is going to enforce this?

What if your employer gives you a space in a public car park for which they pay. How is the government going to know?

never mind how they would know - if they introduced the levy on that kind of circumstance, the space would be getting paid for twice, which is just stupid. As said in my post above, I don't understand how they are getting away with this. The space is either on private property or it is already being paid for.

copacetic

Mitch Connor wrote: »

i don't understand this at all.
Firstly, I'll assume this applies to all Dublin post codes - 1-24.

At my office, there is a company car park and the people working here can park there for free. A space is not guaranteed and none are set aside, it is first come, first served. Will i get caught for this, even though I am parking on private property in a space that is not provided solely for me?

thats the way most company spaces are in Dublin, according to the above you will pay reduced rate as the space isn't for you only. Would imagine I'll be the same.

Daith

Anan1 wrote: »

It's subsidised, so it's still a benefit.

I can see that if the company is paying say €10 a space and charging the person a €5.
However if it's private property that the company owns and starts to charge a €1 a year for it they're not subsidising anything?

It's also interesting for people working in shopping centres that provide free parking for staff and customers.

R.O.R

I should be ok thankfully - our office doesn't have parking spaces, just a nifty grid design painted around the building.

Very Art Nouveau

Zulu

you should be probably be able to claim some tax back for that particular art installation.
Very good.

Jip

What wasn't mentioned in the report above but was on RTE this mornings is that ministers are exempt ffs.

Daith

Jip wrote: »

What wasn't mentioned in the report above but was on RTE this mornings is that ministers are exempt ffs.

I thought all ministers use push bikes/walk/use public transport now?

Anan1

Daith wrote: »

I can see that if the company is paying say €10 a space and charging the person a €5.
However if it's private property that the company owns and starts to charge a €1 a year for it they're not subsidising anything?

They're still subsidising your parking space as long as they're letting you use it for less than its worth on the open market.

Daith

Anan1 wrote: »

They're still subsidising your parking space as long as they're letting you use it for less than its worth on the open market.

Sorry I can't see that. They own the land. They've paid for it. What's to subsidise?

Or is there an actual size of land/number of spaces number that everyone uses? Can't people charge as much as they want for parking?

Jaysoose

They should just bring in a fresh air tax 'levy' that way the air in and around the spaces can pay for their audi a6's

andrewh5

bruce wayne wrote: »

but when it says Dublin....were in Dublin are they talking about ???

is that city centre only (i.e. dublin 1, 2 & 4?)
is it all Dublin with postcodes (i.e. 1 - 24?)
is it Dublin city and county ?

I'm in Dun Laoghaire as well, which is county Dublin...am I exempt

Also how about if an employeer charged you €1 a year for your space...technically then your space is not provided so does this mean...no levy ??

It says Cities in the details. Dun Laoghaire is County.

They can feck off if they try and charge me. I live a 20 minute drive from work but public transport would be 3 buses and the Dart!!

flanzer

Still very sketchy IMO. If you work in Malahide, a built up suburban area, in Co. Dublin, will you be levied. Same with Swords, Balbriggan etc? I'm in the airport...will I be levied?

I can see another can of worms being opened up tomorrow!

mumhaabu

Still glad we voted for Fianna Fail - personally I think we need an armed rebellion and a coup against these tramps in Government.

Wibbler

They must have introduced this levy to keep the Greens onboard.

It sounds to me like it will be a pain in the ass to administer while pissing off over 50,000 drivers. All that grief for what must be about €10m a year in tax take.

I live in Swords and commute daily to Sandyford. Public transport just doesn't cut it for that trip. I tried a private bus and Luas combo, but still needed to drive to reach the bus in the first place. I wouldn't expect that I'm unusual. There are many commuters for whom turning to public transport would be impractical.

Someone once labelled UK transport policy as "carrot and stick, but without the carrot". Somehow that seems even more apt in our case.

deffin

This is the work of the effing greens. They should never darken the door of Dail Eireann again and after this they won't. To introduce this in an area, Galway for example, where public transport is virtually non-existent and having to pay this is beyond a joke. On Galway Bay FM this morning, Keith Finnegan interviewed Green councillor Niall O'Brochallan (can't spell his name) and he admitted that it was not appropiate to charge this fee to people who have no access to public transport and then went on to say that it shouldn't be free and started comparing it to London. LONDON for chrissakes - he also had the gall to say that €200 was nothing. That is the measure of these Green boys. Time they went.So your now going to be paying tax on your car - tax when you go to work and tax to have your car parked at work....what's next.!!

Biro

quirke_folder wrote: »

Who is going to enforce this?

What if your employer gives you a space in a public car park for which they pay. How is the government going to know?

And what if you cycle to work, but bring the car the odd time? Or pretend you cycle to work? Are you exempt? And how will they know?

Wibbler

Biro wrote: »

And what if you cycle to work, but bring the car the odd time? Or pretend you cycle to work? Are you exempt? And how will they know?

Or, say the parking spaces at your company are shared. You get in early every day to claim a space, but a colleague only gets a space every other day and often has to park elsewhere. So, who pays what?

DublinDilbert

It is unbelievable to put it mildly... no body knows where the boundaries are...

what happens if you change jobs? do you pay a second €200... :rolleyes:

I work from home most of the time, do i have to pay to park in my own drive way?

<off topic rant>This combined with the extra €160 Levy on health insurance (like its a luxury), we pay health insurance cause the health service is crap, then we get taxed on it!!</off topic rant>

Beta Ray Bill

quirke_folder wrote: »

Who is going to enforce this?

What if your employer gives you a space in a public car park for which they pay. How is the government going to know?

Well they will Hire a couple of Thousand people all of whom have to be paid to monitor this. "They will visit 18,000 Business's a month"

Then they will embark on an expensive advertising campaign which will display the Car Park Inspectors ability to speak THREE different languages!

Sound familiar?

And hence toe government will be no richer due to the expense of enforcement of this stupid tax and people will be out of pocket.

Lastly

Please don't anyone say that this will be good for the environment or reduce traffic congestion as it will not. Irish people are stubborn. We don't "do" change very well. People will still drive their cars to work regardless of cost!

Mitch Connor

grahambo wrote: »

Well they will Hire a couple of Thousand people all of whom have to be paid to monitor this. "They will visit 18,000 Business's a month"

Then they will embark on an expensive advertising campaign which will display the Car Park Inspectors ability to speak THREE different languages!

Sound familiar?

And hence toe government will be no richer due to the expense of enforcement of this stupid tax and people will be out of pocket.

Lastly

Please don't anyone say that this will be good for the environment or reduce traffic congestion as it will not. Irish people are stubborn. We don't "do" change very well. People will still drive their cars to work regardless of cost!

some are stubborn, some have no practical choice.

I can either drive for 35 minutes to get into work, or leave the house 10 minutes earlier and take almost 2.5hours and have to work later into the evening, getting home sometime around 8, (instead of 4). Public transport is simply not a viable alternative for me and it does not seem fair that I should be further punished for this (and it not like i'm working in a shed in the middle of nowhere)

Heroditas

It currently costs me more and takes double the time to travel the 7 miles to work.
Walk to bus stop (15mins) and get off at the Phoenix Park Chapelizod gate and walk through the park to Ashtown Gate.
Or get the bus after 15min walk, travel to Leixlip, get train to Ashtown, then I'm right at work. Do the opposite in the summer.
Or drive to Leixlip (I have to actually get onto the N4 first - something I struggle to do every morning anyway - longest part of the commute), pay to leave the car in Leixlip train station, then travel to Ashtown.

Hmmmmm, decisions decisions. Which one is the best one to take? Oh wait, the 30-40min drive that is cheaper. Yes, that option will do nicely.
Oh wait, I'm going to be taxed further by using that option - the only realistic available option. :rolleyes:

Berty

Consider this. If your employer in the city gives you a parking space and like me you live in the countryside where the only bus leaves at 8:20am and gets into Limerick city at 9:40am and the last bus home is at 5:20pm. There is only one bus in between. No train service.

I am therefore forced to drive into the city so why should I be charged for parking my car when I have not been given any alternative?

Penalised for working in a city and living in the country.

Heroditas

quirke_folder wrote: »

Penalised for working

Fixed

Seth Brundle

Daith wrote: »

I thought all ministers use push bikes/walk/use public transport now?

They do in their arse! Even the feckin 'green' ministers have state cars (even if it is a Toyota Smug).

stifz

I dunno about anyone else but im getting really sick and tired of being absolutely screwed side ways in this country. They've backed the developers to the point of collapse and now seek alternative means of income.

I too spend hrs commuting from the country due to high Dublin house prices forcing me out from the center.. Now the boom is gone belly up the houses on the commuter belt have dropped more than those in the city centre.. So thats me nailed to the floor boards and tied to the house for the next 3-5 yrs if i want to get anything close to what i paid for it back.

I service the car 3 times a year. spend 20hrs a week in a car, get next to nothing for the car after 3 years ownership in resale due to high mileage. I pay my taxes to drive the roads and then they toll them. The bus service is a joke to my house and still involves a journey in a car of 5 miles. The private service offers 2 services both of which don't suit because i can't get to them on time. train service the same.

Seriously folks wtf is going on? At what point do we stand outside the dail with plakards and join the over 70's and the students. I have a house thats lost 25k in the last year, a car thats worth peanuts. Im hanging onto my job just about - ( specialized ) and means i cant work anywhere but about 5 companies all based in Dublin... so after i leave my devalued house, drive my worthless car, get screwed when i fuel it up, get tolled on route and arrive to work with a pay cut i then hand over money to park it in a car park outside the office.

rant rant rant....:mad:

they don't seem to understand that if they set up PROPER services BEFOREHAND and then introduce penalties that people will more inclined to use them. Id gladly leave the car at home if i could commute without having to do a mini marathon to get home wait 3 hrs for the next available and pay through the nose for it and then stand like a sardine for the entire journey.

Boskowski

Ah well the motorist who has no choice about being a motorist - and is therefore cornered - and was getting fkd 12 times over is now getting fkd 13 times over.

FGR

Lack of common sense prevails.

Why couldn't they just increase the standard income tax rates and drop the ridiculous charade of stealth taxes instead?

Eric Cartman

Heroditas wrote: »

It currently costs me more and takes double the time to travel the 7 miles to work.
Walk to bus stop (15mins) and get off at the Phoenix Park Chapelizod gate and walk through the park to Ashtown Gate.
Or get the bus after 15min walk, travel to Leixlip, get train to Ashtown, then I'm right at work. Do the opposite in the summer.
Or drive to Leixlip (I have to actually get onto the N4 first - something I struggle to do every morning anyway - longest part of the commute), pay to leave the car in Leixlip train station, then travel to Ashtown.

Hmmmmm, decisions decisions. Which one is the best one to take? Oh wait, the 30-40min drive that is cheaper. Yes, that option will do nicely.
Oh wait, I'm going to be taxed further by using that option - the only realistic available option. :rolleyes:

i wouldnt bother with parking at train stations, 5 euro a week, even if you only work 40 weeks a year thats still 200 + your bus/train fairs, just drive there

Anan1

ForegoneReality wrote: »

Lack of common sense prevails.

Why couldn't they just increase the standard income tax rates and drop the ridiculous charade of stealth taxes instead?

Because the idea is to make it more expensive for people to drive to work.

kayos

Its so bad even some of the greens are giving out....

Boskowski

Anan1 wrote: »

Because the idea is to make it more expensive for people to drive to work.

Great fkn idea, we all start walking to work then. Or else we could wait for the bus that comes every Thursday around lunch time and returns Monday mornings. Oh no hold on we'd have to drive 6 miles to the bus stop and they surely put a levy on the carpark by the bus stop then.

kayos

Anan1 wrote: »

Because the idea is to make it more expensive for people to drive to work.

Thats fair enough if there is a alternative. But there are plenty of housing developments in commuter belts that have little or no access to public transport. This is down to poor planning, which allowed the developers get rich by building over valued housing developments in the middle of no where with little or no services. But if Joe soap wanted to build a house for himself on Family land the line is "sure you can'nt be doing that lads!"

The public transport in this country is a joke, pop over to London and see a good public transport infrastructure, or hit main land europe and see a proper public transport set-up.

stifz

Anan1 wrote: »

Because the idea is to make it more expensive for people to drive to work.

Exactly. The usual Irish method of change - Price it out of use..

What they fail to see is it might actually put people out of work. Keep pricing commuters ( not Dublin suburb commuters ie having buses every 15mins- i mean commuters 100miles round trip who have massive costs as is and are forced to work in city center regions as there is no work locally.

Its another wanna - be follow the UK... only do a half arsed job, rather than do a city centre driving levy they tax the parking instead and just to stick the knife in don't bother offering incentives to go public transport.. oh yeah sorry.. thats because the public transport system is a farce as is.

stifz

kayos wrote: »

But if Joe soap wanted to build a house for himself on Family land the line is "sure you can'nt be doing that lads!"

yeah you have to live and work within 5km of your proposed development..

Working 5km from home for me is like a dream of winning the lotto.

FGR

stifz wrote: »

just to stick the knife in don't bother offering incentives to go public transport.. oh yeah sorry.. thats because the public transport system is a farce as is.

Ah now..They do give you an incentive to cycle to work..




All 100 miles of it.

techdiver

I feel some sympathy with people who have a long commute with very little public transport available, but unfortunately the bigger picture has to be looked at.

Too many people use their cars to drive to work unnecessarily. As some one who actually owns 2 cars I find it ridiculous that so many people clog up the roads by driving to work.

As mentioned before I know there are people with no other choice but, where there is a serious problem in Dublin whereby many people drive to work when there is a viable alternative available to them in the form of busses/dart/train.

I would go further and introduce a congestion charge in Dublin between Monday - Friday.

We do need to force the urban dwellers at least to use public transport and when the traffic issue is resolved because of this, public transport can become more efficient and punctual.

Beta Ray Bill

kayos wrote: »

Thats fair enough if there is a alternative. But there are plenty of housing developments in commuter belts that have little or no access to public transport. This is down to poor planning, which allowed the developers get rich by building over valued housing developments in the middle of no where with little or no services. But if Joe soap wanted to build a house for himself on Family land the line is "sure you can'nt be doing that lads!"

The public transport in this country is a joke, pop over to London and see a good public transport infrastructure, or hit main land europe and see a proper public transport set-up.

You're absolutely correct. I am very very Lucky that I live beside a train station. But this business of the developers getting away with murder is not on. the government is prosecuting them now for not paying additional Levies to the Government connecting roads to these estates. (never mind services these people didn't even want to pay for a road into the estate they just built!!!)

I really don't understand why the regular Joe is being taxed!? Its the developers and builders that have been coining it for years! Tax them! they have the money!

Anan1

To be fair, a 100 mile round trip to work is madness whatever way you look at it.

Heroditas

Eric Cartman wrote: »

i wouldnt bother with parking at train stations, 5 euro a week, even if you only work 40 weeks a year thats still 200 + your bus/train fairs, just drive there

Oh I have no intention of not driving. Unfortunately, if I actually wanted to give up the car - these are the options facing me.

What about sales reps who need their cars to visit clients? Taxing them for doing their job.

Berty

Heroditas wrote: »

Oh I have no intention of driving. Unfortunately, if I actually wanted to give up the car - these are the options facing me.

What about sales reps who need their cars to visit clients? Taxing them for doing their job.

Yes but people will argue that my nice Audi A4 Sport under my ass should be taxed. Why should I have a free car? is what people say.

I am taxed benefit in kind on the OMSP of my car currently so the cheaper my company car the better.

IMO Im taxed for going to work, taxed at work and taxed at home.

stifz

Anan1 wrote: »

To be fair, a 100 mile round trip to work is madness whatever way you look at it.

My local shop is 7 miles away. Its relative. You'd be surprised how many people travel more than this..

Its not madness its survival. I have a house to pay for a wife & child to look after. Id drive 200miles rather than go on the dole or cut my wage to a half and loose the house. I can't sell.

I feel i have no choice.

Im not complaining about where i live id rather spend the time traveling to somewhere i enjoy living and have freedom in having space around me. Im originally from south Dublin so i know both scenario's.

It took me 1.10 hr to get to south dublin - it takes about 1.45 /2hr to home now. Not much of a difference traveling time but when you look at the miles.. 5 miles dublin to south dublin / 48ish dublin - midlands.