Officers from the Dublin Metropolitan Regional Roads Policing Unit recently launched ‘Operation Enable’, a multi-agency initiative targeting the unauthorised use of disabled parking bays and disabled parking permits in Dublin city-centre.

A number of other agencies were involved in the operation, including Dublin City Council, Dublin Street Parking Services and the two associations responsible for issuing disabled driving permits in Ireland, the Irish Wheelchair Association and the Disabled Drivers Association of Ireland.

In the weeks preceding the operation, several streets in Dublin city-centre were identified where a significant number of disabled parking permits were being used by motorists in regular parking spaces to avail of free parking.

On the morning of Wednesday March 1st, officers were deployed in plain-clothes on these streets and spoke to motorists as they arrived for work and parked using the disabled permits. In this way, one motorist was found to have a fake permit while another ten motorists were detected for unauthorised use of a permit belonging to another person. 

Some examples of offences detected include one lady who was using her husband’s permit to park outside the Social Welfare office while she collected unemployment benefits, another lady who was using a photocopy of a family member’s permit and a man who was still using his mother’s permit over a year after she had died.

The permits were seized from the offending motorists and all will face Court appearances for fraudulent use of a permit, an offence which carries a maximum penalty of a €3,000 fine and/or six months imprisonment.