THE NEW CLAMPING contract Dublin City Council has entered into with Dublin based business Tazbell Services Group DAC has a value of €36.67 million (ex Vat).

A new contract notice from Dublin City Council shows that Tazbell Services has beaten off bids from two rival firms to secure the lucrative contract.

Tazbell Services through Dublin Street Parking Services (DSPS) Unlimited has operated the city council clamping contract since 2004.

Each year, DSPS tickets, clamps, relocates and stores in the region of 60,000 vehicles in the capital.

The new €36.67 million contract is for five years with an option to extend year by year for a further two years.

The most recent figures for the first six months of 2019 show that a daily average of 129 motorists had their cars clamped in the city council area.

According to the Council tender for the works, the objective of the contract include – maintaining a high level of compliance with on-street parking controls in the City Council area; ensuring the probability of enforcement action being taken is sufficiently high to deter illegal parking and providing the very highest level of customer care and service.

The Council has also stated an objective of the contract is to minimise the net cost to the Council of providing the service; providing flexibility in the Council/Contractor relationship and providing innovation in service delivery and sharing in risk and reward.

When inviting tenders for the contract last year, the Council had estimated the value of the contract to be €45 million (ex Vat) and the contract awarded of €36.67 million represents a sharp drop on that initial estimate.

Last year, the council recorded revenue of €27.9 million from parking fees and a further €3.2 million in clamp release fees. The standard clamp release fee is €80.

Tazbell Services Group

The City Council contract for Tazbell represents important business for the Dublin city based firm.

Tazbell’s most recent accounts show that the group recorded a 23% increase in pre-tax profits to €1.75 million in 2017 after revenues decreased marginally from €17.99 million to €17.8 million.

Tazbell Services Group is the largest commercial car park operator in the country with a diverse client base including retailers, financial institutions, real estate investment trusts, private investors, hospitals and local authorities.

Tazbell Services Group is also the largest provider of outsourced parking enforcement services in the country.

The group presently run operations at over 30 locations in Ireland support by a management and customer care centre in East Point Business Park in Dublin 3.

The group operates a toll collection services on the M4 motorway which was further expanded to the M3 when that motorway opened.

In total the group manages around 50,000 on-street parking spaces for local authorities in Ireland and its client list includes Dublin City Council, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and South Dublin County Council.

Numbers employed by the group decreased from 231 to 228 in 2017 with staff costs decreasing from €8.52 million to €8.4 million.

Pay to directors Thomas Dowd and Martin O’Gara totalled €347,731 – key management personnel received €785,441.

Tazbell in 2017 paid out €300,000 in dividends and this followed a dividend payout of €750,000 in 2016.

The directors stated that they were satisfied with the performance of the group.