Dublin City Council’s clamping service operator does not publish financial accounts and is owned by way of a company based in the Isle of Man.
It is yet another of a growing list of providers of public services that, by way of forgoing limited liability status, do not have to publicly disclose their profitability or otherwise.
Last week The Irish Times disclosed that Go Safe, a company that operates speed camera vans on behalf of the State, had changed to unlimited status, meaning the firm is no longer required to file public accounts. It is owned by a parent company in the Isle of Man.
City Bin Co and Greyhound Waste, which operate waste- collection services in Dublin, are unlimited Irish companies owned in turn by companies in Jersey and the Isle of Man, so their levels of profitability are not known.
Dublin Street Parking Services, an unlimited company based in the East Point Business Park, Dublin 3, was paid €6.1 million last year by Dublin City Council to operate clamping and other services, according to a council spokesman.
It paid €4.32 million in clamping and other charges it collected to the council. The company was awarded the contract for the council area in 2011 after a tendering process.
The company is part of the Tazbell Group, another unlimited company based in the East Point Business Park. It is in turn owned by Quinlan (Raglan) Ltd and Quinlan (Morehampton), both based in the Isle of Man.
There was no response to a request for a comment from Tazbell yesterday.
The directors of Dublin Street Parking Services are Thomas Dowd and Martin O’Gara. Mr Dowd was formerly a director of Quinlan Private, a financial business owned by financier Derek Quinlan.
The Tazbell Group operates a toll plaza operating service, a fines collection service for local authorities and the courts, and Park Rite, a parking service used by clients both public and private.
Apcoa Parking Ireland Ltd, based in Lucan, Co Dublin, operates “on-street parking enforcement” for nine local authorities, according to its website.
It issues more than 90,000 parking tickets per annum and collects more than €5 million per annum, operating the service for Fingal, Kildare, South Dublin, Wicklow, Cork and Mayo county councils, as well as for Mallow Town Council, Sligo Borough Council and Galway City Council.
The latest accounts for Apcoa Parking Ireland show it made a pre-tax profit of €190,404 in 2012, down from €254,812 the previous year. It had accumulated profits of €3.4 million at the end of 2012. The company is part of Apcoa Parking AG, a multinational based in Stuttgart, Germany.
