Litter fines in Cork city soar

THE number of litter fines issued in the first six months of this year has soared compared with last year.

Figures provided to the Cork City Joint Policing Committee by the chief executive of Cork City Council, Ann Doherty, reveal that there were 606 fines handed out up to the end of June. This is up from 321 in the first six months of 2020.

According to the figures, there were no fines handed down in April and May of 2020, the early months of the pandemic. There were just six handed out in June 2020.

By comparison, in April this year, there were 166 fines given out, while there were 133 in May and 75 in June.

Fifty prosecutions have been taken in the first six months of this year.

Meanwhile, almost half the fines handed out by Cork City Council for parking offences were for failing to show a valid disc.

Figures show that 11,338 such offences from September last year to August this year were detected. They accounted for 43.2% of parking infringements.

3,827 detections were made for failure to display a current licence disc (14.58%) while there were 3,065 incidents of parking in loading bays recorded (11.65%).

According to the figures, the most likely place to be caught flouting the city’s parking regulations was Patrick’s Street, accounting for 9.36% of incidents (2,456 incidents), followed by South Mall with 1,397 detections, and Connaught Avenue/Donovan’s Road coming in third, with 796 recorded incidents.

The number of fixed charge penalties handed down in the past 12 months was 26,231 – down from 30,613 in the previous year.