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Only 100 free-of-charge car parking spaces at new children's hospital not enough, say critics
OF THE 1,000 car parking spaces that will be available at the new National Children's Hospital, just 100 of them will be free-of-charge for families in need.
It was revealed two years ago that car parking charges at the children's hospital will be capped at a maximum of €10 per day, something which sparked controversy at the time.
In answering a parliamentary question, Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the car park will be split across two floors of the new hospital with a total of 994 car park spaces.
There are 319 spaces dedicated to staff and 675 for patients and families, of which 100 spaces are for those who will not be required to pay for parking, she confirmed.
The new National Children's Hospital Ireland is located in the heart of south central Dublin city on the grounds of the wider St James' Hospital campus.
Patients attending the hospital are encouraged to use public transport 'where possible' with just a limited of number of onsite parking with direct access to the main entrance.
Access to the National Children's Hospital Ireland on the St. James' Campus is well served by public transport, said the health minister, though she acknowledged there is a need for families to access the hospital by car.
However, Sinn Féin's David Cullinane has hit out at the government for giving over such a small number of free car parking spaces to families.
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Government watering down promises
Speaking to
The Journal
, he accused the government of watering down its previous promises around capping car parking charges in hospitals.
'My view is that car parking charges should be phased out in hospitals, but particularly when you're talking about children. There is a cost of a child being sick. Parents have to take time off work. Parents can be up and down the hospital a lot.
'Obviously, with a sick child, parents need to be there more often. So for all of those reasons, I've contended that all of the spaces should be free [at the new hospital],' he said.
'For only 100 of them to be free, it doesn't seem fair and doesn't seem right. As we transition to the new site, hopefully sometime next year, I would hope that the right decision will be made to ensure that car parking spaces are free,' said the Waterford TD.
Promise to cap charge
Hospital car park charges have been a contentious issue for a number of years.
In 2018, the HSE undertook a national review of car parking charges at the request of the then-health minister Simon Harris.
It recommended that hospitals should cap the maximum daily rate for parking at €10 and introduce concessions for regular patients and found that 'funding of approximately €4.75m would be required to offset the reduction in income as a result of these changes'.
Reducing hospital parking costs became a key promise in the 2020 Programme for Government but there was little progress on the issue over the last five years.
There are huge regional disparities in parking costs. According to the Irish Cancer Society, cancer patients in Dublin can pay up to five times more than those in rural areas.
However, despite this being a key talking point for the last number of years, in particular as the 2026 opening date for the new children's hospital gets closer, the new Programme for Government has done away with a commitment to cap parking fees and now merely promises to 'explore further ways to reduce hospital car parking charges'.
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The government's commitment on parking charges has been 'watered down' in the new Programme for Government, Cullinane said.
Under Sinn Féin's policy, hospital charges would be phased out over a period of time, he said, stating that obviously, like any measure, it costs a lot of money and might be difficult to do in one go.
'But I don't have confidence that the government is going to do any more than what they have done,' he said, adding that the previous health minister Stephen Donnelly had expressed an opinion that car parking charges should be free.
'What we're seeing now in the new Programme for Government, in my view, is a rolling back of that, a watering down of it, with no detail as to what is actually meant in the programme for government.
'Now we have a situation where the new Children's Hospital potentially could have the vast majority of spaces at a cost and I think that's unacceptable, given that we're talking about sick children and parents visiting sick children. So the government needs to do the right thing and ensure that they're free from day one,' added Cullinane.
Outsourcing hospital car parks
Labour's health spokesperson Marie Sherlock agreed, expressing concern over the outsourcing of car parks to profit-maximising companies. She suggested that the new hospital should directly manage parking and therefore could increase free or low-cost spaces.
'The whole point of constructing these hospitals is that people are coming from right across the country and they will have to drive. They will not be there for short periods, they'll be there for long periods of time, either as an inpatient or outpatient. So the reality is that we have to have an accommodating situation with regards to car parking in the new National Children's Hospital,' said Sherlock.
She said people are angry and upset over the high cost of parking charges at hospitals stating that there's a real responsibility with this new public building that patients and their families would be accommodated to much greater degree.
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