Bandit country

Rich tickets: Whilst ambling through one of Dublin's most salubrious neighbourhoods recently, I came across one of those dinky convertible yokes so beloved of a certain type. "Hairdresser," I snorted.

There was logic behind my prejudice. It was parked outside a hair salon, after all. My attention was less piqued by its vulgarity than by its placement - on double yellow lines. One of the many, many, many entries on my list of pet hates.

"Please, please, please . . ." I prayed, neck craning forwards in the hope of seeing a parking ticket adorning the windscreen. And, lo and behold, there it was, gloating away in the breeze. Great man for the schadenfreude that I am, I cackled with glee.

My sniggers had barely subsided when a gouger with a haircut so architecturally extravagant Gaudi would have baulked at it, strutted out of the salon and ripped the ticket from the windscreen with a great "look-at-me" flourish. He then plonked it in a nearby bin, dusting his hands theatrically before returning whence he came, pleased as pleased can be. The words I muttered on witnessing this performance are not appropriate for these pages. Fit to be tied, so I was.

Seconds later, two gardaí rounded the corner. I have no qualms telling you I was sorely tempted to direct their attention towards the bin. (Self-righteousness being one of the finest of my multitude of enviable character traits). I resisted, reckoning justice had already proved herself to have her beady eye on our friend. He would get his in the end.

Revelations of recent days have convinced me otherwise. It has since been brought to my attention that only 60 per cent of the 45,000-odd parking tickets issued in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown each year - where the above was witnessed - are paid. Thousands of motorists - the pampered prat evidently being one - simply disregard them. Why? Because they know something I didn't when I decided not to grass on our peacock-plumaged chum, namely that their chances of being dragged before the borough's overstretched courts to face justice are as slim as my hopes of becoming Minister for Transport.

So dire is the situation that a mere four motorists faced the wrath of the local District Court last year. Presumably, that hapless quartet only met their punishment because they naively came to the court voluntarily.

There are 527 people with six or more unpaid tickets in the first 10 months of 2006. Four goons have over 300 between them. That's dedication to lawbreaking in anyone's book.

And all this in one of the best-heeled neighbourhoods in the country. But then, the wealthy don't get to be or remain wealthy by being easily parted with their cash.

At their wits end, the council - which is now managed by none other than former Traffic Tsar, Owen Keegan, the man who introduced clamping to Dublin - has decided, perhaps predictably, to target recidivists with a clamping blitz.

Oh, happy joy, I exclaimed on reading this. Will they roll out a phalanx of giant car-munching robots to patrol the mean streets of Sandycove, scooping up serial offenders' illegally-parked motors in steel-crushingly awesome clamps of death? What joy! Sadly, no. Turns out it'll just be some geezers in vans. Ah well. Don't all 527 of you go running to court at once, will you?

There's more. Some 1.1 per cent of tickets dispensed last year given to able-bodied folk for the indefensible crime of parking in disabled drivers' spaces. No need for florid descriptions here - do that and you are pondscum. Were I Mr Keegan, I'd get proper medieval on these particular transgressors. Ticketing, clamping or judging would be dispensed with in favour of draggin' them on to Dún Laoghaire pier and publicly branding their foreheads with the mark of Cain.

That, as they say, would learn them.