A review of data gathered from Galway City’s new “modernised” parking payment system has been deferred until Galway City councillors can participate in a workshop with senior council staff.
The report, analysing parking income figures from the past year, was listed on the agenda for Galway City Council’s September plenary meeting — the first meeting since the summer recess.
However, discussion of what the figures reveal about parking in Galway was postponed, with the item deferred until Director of Services for Operational Development Patrick Greene can arrange a closed-door workshop for councillors.
In February, councillors voted to delay reviewing the parking data for a further six months in order to gather a full year of information from the new system of payment methods.
Mr Greene confirmed to the Irish Independent in August that a workshop with Galway City councillors was expected to take place in September, after which the matter would return to the council chamber for discussion at a plenary meeting.
Now, Mr Greene has given councillors the commitment that the workshop will be scheduled within the next two months.
The report shows figures gathered from about 70,000 regular users across the last 12 months. It says the monthly average exceeds 64,000 parking transactions, while 2,600 are processed daily. The bulk of transactions (87pc) are processed through the Galway city app and the website, while the remaining are through Payzone app and retailers.
The report estimates the total income from 2026 surpassing €3.3 million from paid parking and €1.3 million from traffic fines.
Additionally, it shows annual operating costs of the original Pay and Display system from 2022 to 2025:
Moving to the current way to pay was an intiative under the Digital Plus model. Galway City Council said that “had a Digital Plus model been in place between 2022 and 2025” per historic operating costs, the council would have seen over €1 million in savings.
“While the council incurred one-off transition costs associated with public information campaigns, signage upgrades, machine covers and customer awareness measures, these costs amounted to approximately €165,387 and are significantly outweighed by the long-term savings achieved,” the report read.
At this month’s meeting, Cllr Níall McNelis raised concerns about the timeline, noting that the delay in reviewing the data brings elected representatives very close to Budget 2027 discussions.
No date was given for the councillors’ parking workshop or review of the parking data.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.