If you want to park on the streets of Cork City the you need to display a paper “parking disc” or you can use a park by phone service run by ParkMagic
I use ParkMagic
While the cost of parking is EUR 2, just like a paper disc, their ancillary charges keep rising
meaning that now by my figures the situation is as follows
Cost of Parking with a paper disc
= EUR 2.00
Cost of Parking with ParkMagic
= EUR 2.60
[EUR 2 + EUR 0.20 (reminder text) + EUR 0.20 (lets say this is a portion of the EUR 1 credit card topup fee) + EUR 0.20 phonecall to park]
I now see that without notice to me ParkMagic are charging EUR 1 every time I top up my account by credit card (i.e. I add EUR 20 to my account
when I exhaust its balance)
Originally the cost of Parking by Phone (then run by a County Cork company called Park by Phone) was cheaper than a paper disc because they discounted to allow for the cost of a motorist paying for the phone call (that discount soon disappeared), then they started charging for the text message sent when your parking expires (20 cents, although they do allow you to turn that option off)
The City Council I assume wants to promote ParkMagic? but the private company is making the service unattractive,
I’m considering going back to buying paper discs.
