{"id":598698,"date":"2026-08-20T02:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T02:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/598698\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T02:04:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T02:04:12","slug":"cork-td-calls-for-end-to-hospital-parking-charges-after-parking-revenues-soar-at-cumh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/598698\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork TD calls for end to hospital parking charges after parking revenues soar at CUMH"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">A Cork TD has called for the phasing-out of hospital car parking charges, after annual parking revenues in Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) jumped by a massive 3,917% between 2021 and 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">According to\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41896099.html\">HSE<\/a> figures, parking revenues of over \u20ac7,000 were recorded at CUMH in 2021, rising to \u20ac28,400 in 2022, \u20ac245,000 in 2023, \u20ac316,000 in 2024, and \u20ac303,000 in 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Total parking revenue over the five years at CUMH amounted to just under \u20ac1m, at \u20ac967,369.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The difference in parking revenues at CUMH between 2021, which was in the depths of the covid pandemic, and 2025, marks an increase of 3,917%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">A breakdown provided by the HSE showed that members of the public spent a record \u20ac17.7m on hospital parking last year, with the amount spent at public and voluntary hospitals increasing by almost 120% in a five-year period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Nationally, \u20ac8.1m was spent on parking fees in 2020, \u20ac7.3m in 2021, \u20ac10.6m in 2022, \u20ac13.4m in 2023, and \u20ac16.1m in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The hospital with the highest revenue was Cork University Hospital (CUH), with a combined spend of \u20ac11.9m over 5 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">There, hospital car parking income rose from \u20ac1.3m in 2021 to \u20ac2.7m in 2025 \u2014 an increase of over 100%. In 2022, hospital parking income at CUH was \u20ac1.8m, in 2023 it was \u20ac2.2m, and in 2024 it was \u20ac2.4m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">A commitment to address hospital parking charges was included in the 2025 programme for government, which included a pledge to \u201cexplore further ways to reduce hospital car parking charges\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Sinn F\u00e9in TD Donnchadh \u00d3 Laoghaire, for Cork South Central, said there needed to be a funded plan to phase out hospital car parking charges, adding that patients and families should not be charged simply because they need healthcare.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cHospital car parking charges are a charge on being sick and visiting families and friends in hospital,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cNo one chooses to be sick or to have a sick child in hospital. Yet patients and families in Cork are being asked to pay these charges again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Cork TD has called for the phasing-out of hospital car parking charges, after annual parking revenues in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[15607,59626,79,103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":["post-598698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-cork-health","tag-cork-hospitals","tag-cork-news","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}