How desperate, or - perhaps more pertinently - how arrogant and selfish would you have to be, to park your car illegally on MacCurtain Street? I don’t mean pulling momentarily in to pick up a friend in the rain, or waiting a few seconds to collect someone who had just seen a show at the Everyman. I mean to park your car on a footpath or at a bus stop on the street, get out, and saunter away without a care in the world to do whatever business brought you there, perhaps for 15 or 30 minutes, or even for a few hours. The answer is, you would have to have a neck like the nether regions of a male jockey after a particularly arduous race at Cheltenham. But it happens frequently, every day, to the extent that a pilot scheme last winter aimed at tackling out-of-hours parking infringements in Cork city found that nearly half of the fines issued were for MacCurtain Street. Of 368 Fixed Charge Notices handed out on Sundays during the pilot, 150 (41%) were for offences on the recently-revamped city thoroughfare, and of the 101 notices handed out in the evenings, 59 (58%) were issued there. Illegal parking has blighted the street since it was renovated, despite a car park literally being situated there, as well as legal off-street parking bays in the immediate vicinity. Councillors, and pedestrian and disability advocates are consistently highlighting the issue, to little avail. The street’s traders are also annoyed when there is no space for their deliveries to be made. But still a significant quota of selfish and arrogant motorists insist on parking on MacCurtain Street. So bad has the problem become in Cork, that Lord Mayor Cllr Dan Boyle recently pondered whether it was time to bring back towing on the streets of the city, to act as a deterrent to illegal parking. That - or the reintroduction of clamping - might soften the cough of some of these motorists. But I wonder if there is another way to tackle the offenders. It can’t just be me that has noticed many of the cars that are parked unlawfully around the place tend to be on the ostentatious side: giant SUVs, fancy sport cars, motors that would require a second mortgage from those on the average wage. Is it possible that these clearly wealthy drivers have done a simple equation in their minds, weighed up the often slim possibility that they will be caught by a traffic warden for their transgression - and decided they can easily pay a fine of as little as €40? I reckon many of them do. So, I think Cork city should consider a Draconian measure to try to put manners on these motorists. They should introduce a system whereby the fines are tailored to the value of the car which has broken the law, or to the salary of the motorist. Let’s make these people suffer as much pain in the pocket as possible, and see if that alters their behaviour. The idea isn’t that revolutionary. More than 30 European and Latin American countries levy penalties in the courts using an income-graduated model, including Finland and Switzerland. In Finland, for example, you may be fined half a day’s wages, which would be a very different sum for a cleaner and a CEO - but both are hit equally in the pocket, the logic goes. Let’s face it, a single parent in Cork being hit by a €40 parking fine could require an adjustment in their living circumstances, while a BMW driver will feel no pain at all. If a fine is to act as a deterrent and a punishment, it needs to take into account such disparities of income. And I reckon my idea of hitting the rich would have the backing of that Cork icon who nobody messes with - Roy Keane. The soccer pundit made headlines last year when he spoke on a podcast of his anger at illegal parking - veering a little away from soccer - and pointed out that many of the transgressors are wealthy. “You know when people have a few quid and they’ve a nice car and they just park anywhere they want?” he ranted. “On double yellow [lines] or disabled [spaces]; they just think, ‘I’ve got money, I can park where I want’. “They just take the ticket off and go, ‘I can pay that’.” Keane is right to get worked about it - and perhaps if Cork City Council were to introduce my initiative, he would agree to become the face of a poster campaign urging motorists to respect the parking laws. I can’t imagine many people would want to risk incurring the Corkman’s wrath as he stared out menacingly from posters, warning motorists not to be a langer. In that podcast, Keane admitted he was so annoyed by people who parked badly that he might pull their window wipers up and push in their wing mirrors, just to add a little inconvenience their day. Though he did add that putting a brick through their window would be a “bit strong”. Perhaps, if my idea does not work, the brick solution could be introduced as a last resort! It’s not just councillors, traders, and pedestrian and disability advocates who are cheesed off by the proliferation of illegal parkers. Cycling campaigners in Cork have got so fed up with what they see is a lack of enforcement on illegal parking, that they recently compiled a list of the top 10 hot spots in the city. They are: Leitrim Street Monahan Road, Centre Park Road and Marquee Road Washington Street South Main Street Pope’s Quay Victoria Road North Mall Western Road Boreenamanna Road Liberty Street The Cork Cycling Campaign also claimed that a lack of prioritisation of the issue is leading to frequent collisions and deterring people from cycling. Their solutions are a combination of stronger enforcement, infrastructure improvements, and strategic planning. Perhaps they would work. Or maybe making fines income-dependent would be a more effective option? Under this system in Finland, a millionaire in 2015 famously received a €100,000 speeding ticket. In 2010, Swiss police issued history’s largest-recorded speeding fine, €265,000, to a repeat offender in a Ferrari. Who could possibly object to such a system, apart from the owners of fancy cars who don’t believe parking laws are applicable to them? “Oh, won’t anybody think of the poor Ferrari drivers,” said no protest marcher ever. It’s time to hit these people where it hurts... and no, calm down a tad, Roy, I am talking about their pockets, boy.