Reconsider increase in parking charges at Clonsilla train station, councillors ask

Trains arrived from both directions into Clonsilla train station on Monday evening and commuters trickled out. 

A small crowd gathered at the bus stop just over the canal, mostly scrolling smartphones.

At close to 6.30pm, Conor Fitzpatrick was getting into his car near the pay and display machine on the street outside the station, where commuters park. 

He’d taken the train back to Clonsilla from work, and was about to drive home.

“I think it’s stupid I drive five minutes. But I do,” Fitzpatrick said. “Because the bus sucks.”

Walking would take significantly longer, and he’s not up for it.

John Murphy, who also drives to the station to get the train, said something similar. 

“We live about, I suppose, by car, it's about a seven, eight minute drive – something like that. So it'd be a long walk, it'd be about 45 minutes,” he said. 

Fitzpatrick said he was surprised to see parking charges at the station increase when he drew in recently. “I thought there was a problem with the app,” he said. 

He said he thinks the change made in mid-February, which saw a day’s parking rise from €2 to €5 a day, is excessive. “I'd say it's a money-grabbing exercise.”

Complaints about the costs – echoed by other regulars at the train station – have filtered through to local councillors, two of whom put forward motions at a local area committee meeting earlier this month asking that the fee could be revisited. 

Sinn Féin Councillor Angela Donnelly said they hadn’t realised that Clonsilla was included in the changes to parking bye-laws, when they had been debated and formally adopted by councillors at a full meeting in January.

The new parking bye-laws set new rates for on-street parking, off-street parking, and for certain coastal car parks.

But Clonsilla train station’s car park wasn’t mentioned, Donnelly said. "We talked about every beach in Fingal,” she said, at the Blanchardstown area committee meeting on 26 March.

“We talked about private parking in estates. We talked about commercial parking charges,” she said. “We did not mention Clonsilla train station parking, because nobody thought that that was part of this process.” 

Solidarity Councillor John Burtchaell said that raising the cost of parking there didn’t seem to mesh with the council’s transport goals. Which is moving people to public transport or active travel, he said. 

At the meeting, Niamh Russell, an administrative officer with the council’s Operations Department, said they had followed the correct process ahead of the price hike. 

They had a public consultation, debate and briefings with councillors, she said. 

To reopen the bye-laws would mean starting that whole process again, of internal consultation, area committee discussion, and putting all the bye-laws back out again for feedback, she said. “It is a lengthy process.”

And, looking around at other council areas the parking costs aren’t out of line, she said. 

Reviewing parking fees

Council officials had first raised the possibility of hiking parking fees across Fingal at a committee meeting in March 2025. 

Among the changes proposed was to raise the daily rate to park in “on street long stay area” from €2 to €5 a day. 

That idea went out, amid other changes, to public consultation – before the majority of councillors backed it earlier this year.

In her written response, Russell, administrative officer with the operations department, said that they had 553 submissions to the consultation on the parking bye-laws. 

“And it should be noted that no submissions were received in relation to the long-stay on-street parking in Clonsilla,” she said. 

Councillors at the meeting on 19 March said that they simply hadn’t realised that this car park at Clonsilla Train Station was included.

“We all missed it. I think the, in fairness, I think the executive did as well,” said Labour Party Councillor John Walsh. 

The right process was followed, he said. 

But “I suppose, a significant issue of public concern has arisen, and I think when that happens, we have a duty as a public representative, and I think the council has a duty to be responsive to genuine public concerns that are raised”, said Walsh.

The draft bye-laws put out for consultation did namecheck some of the car parks affected by the changes in bye-laws. But not Clonsilla train station.

Russell said the named ones were new beach locations. “This is an existing location and the council didn’t go through every existing location where charges were being increased.”

They included a spreadsheet of the list of increases that were proposed in different kinds of parking areas, including long-stay areas like Clonsilla, she said.

It’s done

Both Donnelly, and Fianna Fàil Councillor Tom Kitt, brought motions to the area committee, asking to relook at the Clonsilla fees. 

Burtchaell, the Solidarity councillor, raised concerns about the scale of the increase. 

"I didn't comprehend, you know, the impact for daily commuters,” said Burtchaell. From €2 a day to €5 a day is an increase of 150 percent, he said. 

“You've gone from €400 a year to €1,000 effectively,” he said “So that's €600 extra. Which is more than a week's wages for an awful lot of people."

He worried that people may start driving into the city centre rather than parking up and taking the train from Clonsilla, he said. 

Even if they don’t, it’s a big hit, he said. “It's a massive cost-of-living impact on hard-pressed commuters who are trying to do the right thing.”

Later, on the phone, Donnelly said she worries about knock-on impacts on streets around the station. 

"It will force people into on‑street parking in estates that are already overwhelmed with cars because of the housing crisis," she said.

Murphy, a Clonsilla resident, said he and his wife drive to the station, park, and commute by train a few times a week. 

They drive separately, as they go in at different times, he says. So the increase will add up. 

For his household anyways, that cost isn’t too much of an issue, he said, but it might be for his neighbours. "For a lot of people, that’s a big increase.”

At the meeting, Russell said the council had looked at car-parking costs in other council areas, and in private car parks, as part of the process of updating the bye-laws. 

It was 15 years ago that the council set the €2 rate, she said. “We just have to be conscious that we are bringing ourselves in line with everybody else.”

Still, councillors agreed the two motions from councillors.

But Russell's written response to each of the two motions ended the same way: "The Operations Department has no plans to review or amend the recently adopted Parking Control Bye-Laws, and a review of these Bye-Laws is not included in the current 2026 Work Programme."

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.