A HSE review of car parking charges at hospitals will consider “affordability measures”, such as capped rates, after figures showed a 140 per cent increase in car parking revenue since 2021.
More than €73.5 million has been generated by hospital car parks since 2020, with revenues more than doubling from €7.39 million in 2021 to €17.76 million last year.
Cork University Hospital (CUH) has had the highest revenue from car parking fees, taking in €11.97 million since 2020, according to figures previously released to Sinn Féin TD David Cullinane.
The HSE said this included staff parking charges deducted through payroll, which amounted to about €100,000 per year.
It was followed by St James’s Hospital (€8.83 million), Beaumont Hospital (€5.96 million) and University Hospital Limerick (€5.92 million).
Damien McCallion, the HSE’s deputy chief executive, told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee late last month he had requested the establishment of a national review group to examine the charges.
He told the committee the review will clarify the “desired national policy approach”, including whether emphasis should be placed on affordability measures.
Such measures could include capped rates and concessions schemes, or “broader reductions in charges”, he said in correspondence seen by The Irish Times.
McCallion said the review group will also consider potential unintended consequences of changes, such as “inadvertently” making hospital car parks “financially attractive to non-hospital users”.
A 2018 review ordered by then minister for health Simon Harris ultimately recommended capping charges at €10 per day, while the 2020 programme for government pledged to introduce caps at all public hospitals “where possible”.
The current programme for government pledges to “explore further ways to reduce hospital car parking charges”.
However, McCallion said progress had “varied across sites” since the 2018 review, and there was no national programme in place. “It is recognised that further progress would best be advanced through a nationally co-ordinated, but locally delivered, approach.”
The review will inform the HSE’s response to the factors “contributing to changes in parking revenue and charges since 2020”, McCallion said. It will also assess financial implications of any proposed changes and identify sustainable funding options where required.
A HSE spokesperson previously said the charges are used to recover costs associated with providing and maintaining parking facilities without placing “additional pressure” on budgets allocated to patient services.
Noting that the new review of parking charges comes eight years after one was ordered by Harris, chair of the Public Accounts Committee John Brady argued this was a “damning indictment of the Government’s failure to tackle this issue”.
“Over time, hospitals have effectively become dependent on this revenue stream, with patients and their loved ones being treated as a source of income to plug the gaps left by the gross underfunding of hospitals across the State,” the Sinn Féin TD said.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation welcomed the review, saying staff parking was “inadequate and expensive” at many hospital sites.