Madam, - At a time when motorists are being urged to leave their cars and use public transport, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is installing parking meters at the Dart Station in Glenageary.
Until now free parking has been available for Dart users on Station Road and St Catherine's Road with spaces for about 150 cars along a half-mile stretch on the railway side of these roads.
The cars do not cause any obstruction and are not parked outside private houses. The spaces are not required by local residents as there is ample parking space for a further 70 cars directly outside their houses.
When the meters come into operation the charge for all day parking will be €5 a day, so that a person who leaves his or her car at the station and continues to travel daily on the Dart will have to pay an extra €25 per week.
Whatever about the rights or wrongs of charging motorists for parking outside local houses there can be no justification for placing parking meters on empty stretches of road currently providing space for Dart users.
What an extraordinary bureaucratic action by the county council to go out of its way to target these commuters and to force them back on the roads. Has Iarnród Éireann anything to say on the matter? - Yours, etc,
BILLY WALL, Killiney, Co Dublin.