Hospital Parking Take Hits €17.76m as Cavan-Monaghan TD Says Families Are at 'Wits End'
Cavan-Monaghan TD Cathy Bennett says families are at their 'wits end' over hospital parking charges, citing HSE figures showing car park income rose from €7.39 million in 2021 to €17.76 million in 2025.
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Monaghan Town Hall, Dublin Street, 2016. Archive location photograph; not the site of the reported project. Eric Jones · CC BY-SA 2.0. Resized; cropped in layout.
Hospitals collected €17.76 million in parking charges in 2025, up from €7.39 million in 2021, and Cavan-Monaghan TD Cathy Bennett says local families are at their "wits end". She told Northern Sound on Friday, 16 October, that patients and families are "being asked to pay these charges again and again".
The numbers
The HSE figures, first released to Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane in August, show a 140% rise over four years, RTÉ reported. Revenue climbed every year: €10.61m in 2022, €13.46m in 2023 and €16.18m in 2024.
Nationwide, 36 hospitals charge for parking, with the daily maximum capped at €10 or less at all but four. The highest cap is €17 at Dublin's St Vincent's University Hospital.
What the TD said
"No one chooses to be sick or to have a sick child in hospital. Yet patients and families are being asked to pay these charges again and again. People with disabilities, carers and families visiting loved ones in hospital are also being hit," Deputy Bennett said.
She criticised a suggested review, saying it would cost "probably tens of thousands of euros of taxpayer money to hire some consultant simply to tell them what was already in the 2018 report". She wants replacement funding as charges are phased out.
The HSE and Department's position
The HSE has pointed to the return to normal activity after Covid-19 for the higher revenue. It says charges recover the cost of providing and maintaining parking "without placing additional pressure on budgets allocated to patient services".
The Department of Health said in August that the Secretary General and the HSE CEO were "engaging directly on the issue" in line with the Programme for Government, and that most hospitals offer some exemptions or concessions.
Sources
This article is an original summary based on the following reporting. We encourage readers to visit the original sources for full coverage.
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