Coroner avoids fine for parking on footway

A Coroner who parked on a footway outside a premises he owned in order to bring some rubbish out to his car had a parking fine dismissed against him today after it emerged that vehicles owned by Cork County Council park there on a regular basis with fines rarely being handed out to the local authority.

Cork County Coroner, Frank O’Connell, parked his car on a footway at the Grand Parade in Cork on July 13th, 2013, shortly before 10am. Mr O’Connell told Judge James O’Connor there “wasn’t a sinner” in the city centre at the time as it was early.

He said he parked slightly to the side of the path in order to “run in” to get some rubbish from an office he owned. He told the court that library vehicles and other Cork County Council vehicles are routinely parked on the footway outside the library.

Mr O’Connell said vehicles are often parked there as Cork County Council previously closed off a laneway which provided access to car parking.

Solicitor Dermot Cuddigan, representing Mr O'Connell, submitted numerous photographs showing Cork City Council vehicles parked on the same spot. He said Cork City Council vehicles are infrequently fined for parking in the same spot.

Traffic warden Adrian Barrett, who put the ticket on the car, said he would have no compunction about fining a vehicle owned by Cork County Council if it was parked on the same spot, and that notices had been handed out in the past to the local authority.

Mr O’Connell told Judge O’Connor he was only running in to get some rubbish from the building on a very quiet Saturday morning and that the fine seemed unwarranted.

“Every day I see Cork County Council vehicles parked there and I have never seen one ticketed.”

Judge O’Connor dismissed the fines saying that Mr O’Connell was a “decent man” who was doing a small bit of business which lasted a few minutes.