Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Well, that’s another fine mess that Galway City Council has found itself in.

And it’s potentially a very expensive mess too – every month the city’s parking meters are ‘out of order’ could cost the local authority €300,000 in revenue.

So how has it come to this, that the city’s 90 parking meters are no longer accepting coins or cards and businesses are threatening to withhold commercial rates until this is sorted?

It’s a long story, but here are the highlights.

In early December, the Council announced it was launching a new parking app. So far, so good, and it was launched with much fanfare – great, another way of paying, how bad?

What the Council did not make clear at the time, was that from January 7, the app was the only show in town, and electronic card payments would........

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