Around 47 thousand vehicles were clamped in Dublin City Centre last year, but it's unclear if it's having the desired effect.
The figures released by the council show a 6 per cent increase in clamping.
The daily average was 108 vehicles clamped, with Merrion Square South being the biggest blackspot.
The area - which is located near the rear entrance to Dáil Éireann – was the prime location for the detection of illegal parking last year with 704 vehicles clamped on the street.
It is the first time that the city-centre location, which links Merrion Street Upper and Fitzwilliam Street Lower, has topped the list of busiest areas for parking enforcement.
It was ranked in fourth place in 2023 when 596 vehicles were clamped there – over a 100 fewer than last year.
Approximately half of all vehicles clamped in Dublin last year were immobilised for the failure to pay for use of a parking bay or have a valid parking ticket.
Over 5,000 vehicles were clamped for parking on a clearway, with Clarendon Street and Ranelagh accounting for more than 20pc of all such cases.
Another 3,200 were clamped for unauthorised parking in a loading bay. Two locations – Rathmines Road Lower and Foley Street – accounted for more than 10pc of the total.
Almost 1,800 vehicles were detected parking on a footpath – 7pc of all infringements occurred on New Ireland Road in Rialto.
Another 1,700 vehicles were caught parking in a bus lane, with more than a quarter detected on Waterloo Road in Dublin 4.
A total of 450 motorists were found to have left their vehicles in a parking space for disabled persons without displaying a valid badge, while 39 were detected parking on a cycle track.
Just one motorist was clamped for misuse of a parking space for electric vehicle charging.
The overall increase in the number of clamped vehicles in Dublin for 2024 comes against a background of significant traffic changes introduced in the second half of the year. These were designed to restrict private vehicles accessing certain roads and discouraging motorists from using the city centre for cross-city journeys.
Sadhbh O'Neill, Lecturer in Energy and Climate Law at Trinity College says the city council should look closer at the problem:
"If they're just trying to free up space on the south inner city where you have a lot of business activity as well as commuters and shoppers and everything that's one thing - but if you are really trying to use enforcement as a tool to get people out of their cars and to get them onto buses and on to biycles and so on that's a different kind of objective and I don't think the data really gives us that kind of clarity"
Figures provided by Dublin City Council under freedom of information legislation show revenue from parking was unaffected by the changes as income from parking fees rose by 15pc to €36.8m – an annual increase of almost €4.8m.
An additional €5.3m was raised in clamping release fees, which were up 9pc on figures from 2023.
The greatest number of vehicles clamped in a single day last year was 218 on Wednesday, June 12.
Data provided by Dublin City Council show motorists are most likely to be clamped on Thursdays, while approximately a quarter of all vehicles were clamped between 8am and 10am.
November was the month with the largest number of clamped vehicles at 4,439.
Figures provided by the other local authorities in Dublin show that illegal parking in some areas surpasses the level of the problem in the city, with 1,586 motorists fined for a parking offence on Main Street in Lucan last year.
They accounted for 15pc of all parking fines issued by wardens in the administrative area of South Dublin County Council in 2024.
In Fingal County Council, the worst illegal parking blackspot was North Street in Swords with 1,365 motorists being fined.
