The ad-lib availability of parking - in the basements of office blocks and the grounds of public buildings, on back lanes and derelict sites turned into surface car parks - explains why so many commuters in the Dublin area can drive into town.
Even the gardai, who are charged with enforcing the traffic regulations, still park three abreast in front of Pearse Street Garda station despite an "informal agreement" with the office of Dublin Corporation's director of traffic, Mr Owen Keegan, that they should limit this to a maximum of two rows.
Most European cities discourage car commuters by restricting the availability of long-term parking. In Dublin, however, commuters can virtually store their cars anywhere; it is estimated that there are at least 26,000 off-street parking spaces in and around the city centre to accommodate them.
The paving of much of Leinster Lawn to provide "temporary" car parking for TDs and senators while construction work is under way is a metaphor for the mess we're in.
Similarly, the lower yard of Dublin Castle is cluttered with the cars of Revenue staff while Dublin Tourism is renting out spaces around St Andrew's church to private commuters.
At Mountjoy Prison, the first phase of the current development programme was a multi-level car park for warders who, by definition, do not need to use their cars during working hours. And in the case of Spencer Dock, the planned 7,000 parking spaces were factored into the "revenue stream" to subsidise the national conference centre.
Some commuters driving in from the southern suburbs to offices in Ballsbridge even came to regard the places where they parked as their own property and were incensed when Dublin Corporation imposed a two-hour limit on non-residential parking in the area. Now, unscrupulous residents are renting out their gardens for parking.
Front gardens everywhere are falling under tarmac. People are pulling up plants and getting rid of lawns to make room for two, three and even four off-street car parking spaces as sons and daughters acquire their own cars.
Neighbours in the more densely built inner suburbs are at war with one another over who should park where on the street.
Hundreds of apartment-owners in the city centre who paid an extra £7,000 to £12,000 for parking spaces in their schemes have found a handy little earner in leasing them out to commuters. This, too, makes a contribution to the overall problem, which basically involves trying to pour a litre of traffic into a pint pot of road infrastructure.