The government today announced that the new parking levy on employers (€200 per parking space in the city centre) will come in to effect this summer.

Effectively this is an indirect congestion charge from central government, but one that presents a great incentive for the City Council to get moving on bringing car clubs in to the City.

Car clubs would run in a similar manner to the existing and successful Dublinbikes scheme and would allow members to share the use of publicly available cars in a convenient manner without taking on many of the burdens/costs/waste associated with car ownership, including car parking charges and levies.

A motion I previously had on the introduction of electric car club schemes was debated by the Council earlier this month. It was agreed that the issue would be sent to the Traffic and Transport Strategic Policy Committee for report. This may end up in unnecessary delays though.

But why wait? What greater incentive do we need? We should take advantage of this new congestion charge and move to introduce car clubs now. I’ve already been contacted by a number of organisations that want to move on this but we’re standing in the way.

We know that tens of thousands of people drive in to work every day, in both the private and the public sector. For big organisations such as Dublin City Council who are based in the very centre of the city, this new levy is going to be another financial burden we cannot afford – we can’t even afford to keep public swimming pools open, things are that difficult.

Bringing in car clubs on to the city’s streets however, even on a pilot basis in certain areas, could save the Council a lot of money. With the use of publicly available cars, Council staff who need access to cars as part of their daily work would no longer need to bring their own cars in to the City.

Think then if these savings could be spread across the City, to every government department and to private businesses – the potential savings for the taxpayer are huge, as well as the benefits to the environment and in decreasing congestion problems.