Almost €11,000 worth of fines were issued to people in Cavan and Monaghan who misused disabled parking spaces last year.
The number of people caught by Gardaí in the local division is up over 100 per cent since 2017.
The standard fine for parking or stopping is a disabled bay is €150.
In 2019, Gardaí in the Cavan-Monaghan division issued 71 such fines, and collected €10,960 from offenders.
That's according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.
This is up by over 50 per cent in 2018, where €7,065 was collected for 55 offences.
In 2017, there were only 33 people caught, and €2,760 worth of fines taken in.
Richard Ryder from the Disabled Drivers Association says a range of excuses are made for parking in a disabled spot including 'I'll only be a minute', which he says is the most common, 'I'm getting my chinese', and 'there's no other spaces' among others which he highlights here:
Gardaí collected €471,000 from 3,664 motorists who broke the law last year.
