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DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL is looking for new clampers – and is inviting tenders for a contract with an estimated total value of €45 million.
The council is seeking a clamping contractor to carry out over 50,000 “successful clamps” each year.
Under the proposals, the clampers will have to pay the council a €150 penalty fee if a vehicle owner successfully appeals the decision to clamp them, as well as refunding them the money. That is an increase from the current fine of €100.
The council calls for a “balanced delivery” of service over five years, with a “close professional working relationship” between it and the contractor.
The successful contractor is required to strictly follow the rules of clamping set out by the council or face financial penalties.
It comes after a previous tender worth €35 million was granted to Park Rite in 2011.
‘Evenly distributed’
In the current tender, Dublin City Council sets out a number of essential requirements that the successful clamping contractor must meet.
This includes maintaining a “high level of compliance with on-street parking restrictions” and “minimising the net cost to DCC of providing the service”.
“The council envisages that the annual number of clamps will be in the region of 55,000 to 57,000 per annum,” it said.
On the need for a close relationship, the council said it is recognised that this is the only way in which the service can be delivered.
The clampers will need to provide routine information on how many calls it receives, its daily activity across the city, statistics on how many cars were parked correctly and legally, and how many clamps it administers.
The areas that the clampers will be required to cover include all the lands under the remit of the city council, broken down by areas such as the city centre, suburban villages, residential areas, bus corridors, cycle lanes and pay-and-display areas.
They will be required to work from 7am till midnight Monday to Friday, 8am to midnight on Saturday and from 10am to midnight on Sundays.
In terms of a “balanced delivery of service”, Dublin City Council said that care must be given to the number of vehicles clamped, the geographic coverage and the times of day it takes action.
The council said: “To avoid an imbalance of service delivery the contractor shall ensure that over the course of each calendar month: that the number of vehicles clamped for pay and display offences does not exceed 55% of the total vehicles clamped, that the percentage of night time (from 5pm onwards) clamps shall be no less than 20% and no more than 30% of vehicles clamped.”
It also requires half of on-street staff to be capable of operating relocation and removal vehicles, as well as asking the contractor to be flexible in how it approaches the job.
“For example, removals are increasingly difficult to manage, not least because of the volume of traffic on Dublin’s roads,” it said.
As a result, the emphasis has shifted towards relocating vehicles rather than taking them back to the pound.
This flexibility will also be required when working around events at Croke Park, the Aviva Stadium and the 3 Arena, the council noted.
Clamping down
In what actually needs to be done when clamping vehicles, the successful contractor will be responsible for the clamping, releasing the clamp immediately if certain criteria apply, dealing with the public, and taking payments for the clamp.
When a clamp is paid for, it must be released within two hours, with a set target of 85% released within one hour.
If the clamp is not removed within this timeframe, the individual will be refunded the charge of removing the clamp, the council said.
When an appeal is granted due to the contractor failing to adhere to the appropriate rules and procedures, it will be required to pay the council €150 each time this happens.
While it is within the rights of clampers to relocate or remove a vehicle, it must not actually enter the vehicle.
It must also handle payment of the fees paid by drivers, and give it to the council.
When it comes to appeals, it set a target of a final decision being given within 21 days in 95% of cases.
According to documents released to TheJournal.ie under the Freedom of Information Act 2014 earlier this year, 228 clamping appeals were made to the National Transport Authority in the first two months after a new law allowed for independent complaints to be made.
Under the new legislation, drivers can also make complaints to the NTA if they are dissatisfied with their treatment by a clamper.
A number of financial penalties can also be incurred, depending on what rules a contractor may break, according to the tender.
Dublin City Council would also transfer assets as part of its clamping contract, including €168,827 worth of vehicles, and over €110,000 worth of IT equipment.
The closing date for receipt of tenders is 8 October.
With reporting from Christina Finn
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Somebody should start a crowd fund for this poor poor woman, she should know that the public believe she was wronged, deserves redress and support! If it’s done I’ll be donating, I can’t imagine how she feels right now.
Why dont you go ahead and do and post the link back here. I’ll donate
I’ll donate what I can.
I would love to but ashamed to say I’m to much of a coward to take on the responsibility for it however I’m going to ask the author of the piece if they can find out if there’s somewhere we can make donations to support these victims. I couldn’t imagine what this is doing to this poor woman’s generaL health!
Horror story from the dark ages, you’d certainly hope so.
To think that this procedure was banned in France in 1798 … Holy Catholic Ireland should hang its head in shame . The suffering that poor woman went through !!
Banned in France in 1798 Judy? What do you say that.
The way these women are being treated is absolutely disgraceful. is it not bad enough that they were treated so badly at the time and that they have suffered so much since? .
I’ll happily donate to a fund set up for this woman & victims of this barbaric practice in general. It’s bullshit that this was a good option in the 1950s! The same procedure was outlawed in Paris in 1798 as it was deemed barbaric. Yet some religious nut (Dev jnr amongst others) thought this was a great way to ensure a woman wouldn’t need those pesky c sections so she could go on and have loads of babies! In all fairness considering women were left incontinent and could barely walk and were in constant pain why on earth would you ever even consider getting pregnant again! I hope these women get the justice they deserve. They were butchered somebody is accountable!
Outrageous.
It means any incompetent can can claim he/she “had reason to believe that the procedure did not generally have adverse effects”, even if he didn’t have a clue or was motivated by other than medical imperatives.
I hope this is appealed.
I really hope this is appealed.
It’s like saying that when the Brothers and nuns beat the crap out of you years ago ‘it was the times that was in it’
You either have empathy or you have not. Breaking a woman’s pelvis, how could a trained Doctor ever have thought it was ok. ‘ oh that was the times that was in it’
Did those doctors ever go to bed at night and wonder what it would be like to have their pelvic bone broken!
No tears from Enda?
Oh wait, the State defended this case…
Europe I hope.
The new hep c. Wonder what Michael Noonan will have to say.
has the health minister made a statement? or is he too busy speaking on every other ministers remit?
Exactly what I thought when I heard it tonight Anne Marie. I can’t believe this poor woman lost her case. It’s barbaric. So sorry to this brave lady
I wonder how many hours of research the defending side took to ‘prove’ that doctors didn’t know this was barbaric? Surely the fact that it was later proven to be barbaric is enough? Guess they were told to hold flood gates closed until a few more victims have passed on.
This is what happens when you have a compliant passive people , this woman could be any of our mothers or grandmothers , it’s a disgrace, does anyone know how to start a crowd fund for this woman or who she is , we need to get off our arses and get rid of the establishment .
Deliberately break a woman’s pelvis in an operating theatre today and what would happen .
State rules again. That poor woman. The psychological trauma of reliving those events day in day out to a packed court room. How that judge can sleep tonight I don’t know. His hands are not tied. He is a judge. The state already offered every woman €50,000, and that was without a trial. How is it now that the judge can award nothing? Something is amiss.
http://www.gofundme.com/ta2aba23u
There you all go donate away :)
Money waisted, paying lawyers yet again, while the victim isn’t redressed, enough is enough, we know these procedures shouldn’t have accrued, compensate them, ensured their health going forward , pay top class health insurance for them, and refund any expenses they have receipts for, above all in this cost conscious world stop waiting money on the courts
The judge’s reasoning was that, while it may seem unnecessary and barbaric now, at the time it was standard and accepted procedure given the knowledge available.
Make of that what you will but his hands seemed tied to some extent.
The problem with that reasoning though is that there was an alternative less damaging procedure available that they did know of but refused to use as it would mean limiting the amount of children the women could have which was against the Catholic ethos. I don’t think it took a lot of knowledge to know that a caescarean would do less damage to a woman’s body.
France outlawed the procedure in 1798 I think… that would suggest they were well ahead of us in figuring out what was barbaric. Beyond ridiculous result for this case.
Sarah you say France outlawed the procedure in 1798? This was also stated above in a post. So 217 years ago, before the advent of modern medicine, you are saying this procedure was outlawed by France? I think this highly implausible. How did they perform this procedure in the absence of anaesthesia, no knowledge of germ theory and no antiseptics? Would you lie there while your pelvis was sawed apart. I doubt it. How is this statement true?
Whether you think it’s implausible or not John R it’s true.
http://www.thejournal.ie/symphysiotomy-un-1355549-Mar2014/
Look it up yourself if you still think it’s implausible .
Inexplicable.
I have nothing but sympathy for this poor woman being tormented still because of this barbaric practice.
On a side not – and as a woman of almost this age – those hands in the picture belong to at least a 90 year old
Just like Noonan and the Hepatitis case. I feel very sorry for this poor lady.
If that’s the law then the law is surely an ass. How can it possibly be right for our government to oppose these cases?
Folks there is a survivors assistance fund you can donate here http://symphysiotomyireland.com/funding-appeal-from-survivors-of-symphysiotomy/
What type of monsters thought up and allowed symphysiotomy and why did it take so long to recognise that it existed?
State / Judiciary ????
have your say