Today, noteworthy_ie published an investigation into hospital car parking charges. One woman was paying ~€200 a month on parking when her mother was sick. The government promised to do something in 2018 but aflchambers found nothing has changed.
“FOR SOME REASON, naively, I thought this had all been resolved. That’s when I realised nothing had changed.”
Between May and September she reckons she paid over €1,000 on parking alone. Carthy is not an outlier. An Irish Cancer Society survey in 2021 found that families of children with cancer could pay an average of over €200 per month on parking. This would cost hospitals at least €4.75m per year to offset reductions in parking income, according to a 2018 HSE review.At Noteworthy, our PARKING PRESSURE investigation examined key documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests, analysed accounts and spoke to experts to find out if there has been any progress on these promises and the impact high costs are having on families around Ireland.
I remember thinking: ‘Well if one hospital can do it, albeit a smaller set up, then why can’t another?’ She wasn’t alone in questioning the system. The Irish Cancer Society began campaigning on this issue in 2016, the same year it produced its ‘Park the Charges’ report. Years of promises and inaction Following the Irish Cancer Society report, the then-Minister for Health Simon Harris asked the HSE to carry out a national review of hospital car parking charges in March 2018 “with the aim of establishing clear national guidelines on this area for the first time”.
It recommended that hospitals cap the maximum daily rate for parking at €10 and concessions for regular patients be introduced. At the time it was produced, at least 10 hospitals charged more than this. In the ‘Fairer and Affordable Care’ section it promised to “introduce a cap on the maximum daily charge for car parking for patients and visitors at all public hospitals, where possible”, and “introduce flexible passes in all public hospitals for patients and their families”.
When we asked the HSE for a copy of the implementation plan and an update on the progress, a HSE spokesperson said: However, the HSE review in 2018 found that the maximum rate in at least 10 hospitals exceeded its recommended €10 cap. Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie Aontu TD Peadar Tóibín: “We weren’t going to wait for the government.” Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie
‘Nothing had changed. Nothing’ In August 2021, Thelma Carthy’s mother was diagnosed with cancer a second time. By then, the need for parking reform had become a settled question since she’d last accompanied her to the Mater. She’d heard in the news that the government was going to do something about car parking fees for people like them.
We offer four parking spaces free of charge for relatives of patients nearing end of life, in order to ease the burden for families at a very difficult time in their lives. Carthy also wrote to the operator of the Mater’s car park and inquired about concessions but was told there were none available. That is how she ended up spending in excess of €50 a week in the last months of her mother’s life.
It calls parking charges one of the most unjustifiable expenses that families face: “It is not the first expense that comes to mind, but it quickly takes a toll on families who are already struggling to make ends meet.” Why charge fees at all? The HSE review made clear that for free or capped parking to be introduced, the income shortfall and other issues would need to be addressed.
This includes “the initial capital cost of purchasing or renting parking areas, the cost of developing extra parking spaces, the need to provide and upgrade security systems, provide staffing and general maintenance of these car parks”. According to its financial statements, Eccles Street Car Park uses the income from parking to repay the loan taken out to build it – a loan it had to take out because of government guidelines that say that State funds should not be expended on car parks at acute hospitals.
A spokesperson for the Coombe said that it “goes to fund repairs and maintenance of the car park system as well as maintenance of the car park and surrounds”.
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