Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It should be clear. I do not like seeing people's cars being clamped at hospitals. I accept the Deputy's point. I have personal experience of visiting hospitals, thank God not as a patient, but I have had to visit people in unexpected circumstances. One arrives at the hospital mentioned, for example, and if one has not got change for the machine there is no place to get it without running in to the shop in the hospital, which poses the risk of being clamped. I accept that. I too want those running hospitals to find other ways of dealing with the issue and most of them are doing this.

Beaumont Hospital was cited as an example. However, my response to the issues raised is to ask whether I believe there is any circumstance in which clamping is acceptable. I can think of one circumstance where clamping is acceptable - where a person abuses a parking spot. People should not be allowed to do that to the detriment of somebody who genuinely needs that spot. If we accept there is an occasion when clamping should be allowed by the people running the hospital, who want to permit as much access as possible to the hospital, we must accept it is wrong to ban clamping in primary legislation. That is the approach I am taking here.

I have complete sympathy with the Deputies and the points they have made, because I appreciate the stress involved. However, this is a matter of how the people running the hospital deal with inappropriate parking as opposed to us deciding there are no circumstance in which clamping is allowable.