PRC's Guide to Residents Parking Permits

7th Feb 2006

Residents Parking Permits
Danny Elbow

The sacred cert

Continuing on from our righteous demand to disband the towaway brigades from removing Corkonians' vehicles for mild parking offences we turn our attention this week to another thorn in the side of many vehicle owners in Cork City: the residents parking permit.

Like the overnight erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, only recently did Corkonians awake one morning to find disc parking signs dotted around their estates and suburban roads. While the Corpo facilitated residents with parking permits, blow-ins now have it much tougher.

At the end of 2005 the Corpo updated the requirements to be granted a parking permit. Allegedly because a few people were flahing the system.

The increase in difficulty in obtaining a parking permit is now roughly equivalent to the difference in difficulty between a 5th class spelling test and honours Maths paper one in the Leaving Cert.

You may be in for a bout of disappointment if you live in a new block of apartments that were completed after March 2004. If the developer didn't build a private car park for the apartments then don't expect City Council to do you any favours with a parking permit: you're not eligible. Not a hope. Go 'way.

If you are eligible you should now read the Peoples Republic of Cork Guide to obtaining a parking permit:

PHONE CREDIT & YOGA
Firstly put about 50 euro credit on your phone - you're going to be making a lot of expensive daytime calls to various civil and corporate institutions. You will get to know their introduction recordings, automatic menus and on-hold tunes intimately. Furthermore join a Yoga class that focuses primarily on stress relief and be prepared for a lot of walking.

You should allow two months between moving into your new gaf and obtaining a parking permit. You will need to locate a non-disc zone to temporarily park your car. This is tricky because the Corpo have covered most public roads within a few miles of the city centre with parking zones and you may be forced to leave your precious wheels in a dodgy under-age gatting alley or in the open plains of a shopping centre car park to avoid being towed away.

VEHICLE REG. CERT
You should keep your drivers license in your car at all times but when Murphy's Law applies itself you may have to go rooting in drawers, boxes, cupboards and under beds to track it down. Your "Vehicle Registration Certificate" will be equally elusive - the thing you thought was this precious form turns out to be some correspondence from the tax office.

You have to send this to County Clare to have your wagon's home address altered to your new one. "3 working days" is the alleged turn around time for this but we all know what that means. Several phone calls and weeks later you may eventually get a tattered cert in your door.

Sharon from Jobstown, Tallaght in her corporate detention cell

CORPORATE HELL
Next on the horizon is one of Cork's "favourite" institutions: the car insurance company. Trying to get the address of your new gaf on to an insurance policy is a task which you might want to contract out to an independent professional company if you're not short of grade.

While your phone credit plummets and Green Sleeves is on its fourteenth repetition (all the time being patronisingly reminded of how important your call is) you may decided to give up but we urge you not to let them win.

After you have made several curt communications with your sleepy 21 year old 'customer representative' Sharon, who is slumped at her desk somewhere in mind numbing Corporate Hell in an ugly industrial park in Dublin 44, you may eventually receive your first letter.

Peering up from the page is the most enraging mistake any Dublin based company will ever make with a Corkonian:

"32C Eagle Valley Park, Wilton, Co. Dublin"

So now you have to spend more credit to listen to Green Sleeves before you reach another dull listless Sharon who will, to your profound rage, titter about this trivial matter (the story possibly being the highlight of her month) - telling you, as if it was a positive thing, that you will receive a replacement cert in another 5-10 working days.

You're supposed to submit two utility bills in your name with your parking permit application but of course if you've just moved in this is either impossible or going tot take at last eight weeks. The alternative is to get the address on all your bank accounts and credit card changed and then wait for statements.

Keep strong and breathe deep - there's more trouble ahead.

Your landlord is obliged to join at a cost of 70 euro.

PRTB
When you have everything complete you will now be ready to approach your landlord to ask them for a copy of his/her registration with the PRTB - the Private Residential Tenancies Board. Big fancy name isn't it?

Every landlord must be registered with them so yours must be too right? One phonecall should sort it out:

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