David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill and commend Teachta Tóibín for bringing it forward. My party has supported free car parking in public hospitals for many years. In fact, in the North, Sinn Féin introduced a similar Bill in the Assembly recently that seeks to abolish similar charges. I would do the same if I were the Minister for Health or if Sinn Féin was in government in this State.

We must decide whether we will agree to the principle of free car parking in hospitals and move away from it being a revenue raiser for hospitals and whether we consider the removal of car parking charges as being part of reducing the cost of health care. That is the first question that has to be asked. If we agree with that principle, the difficulties and challenges and the unintended consequences the Minister of State spoke about, some of which were referred to by Deputies Tóibín and Ó Snodaigh, would not be insurmountable and could be resolved.

Let us consider people who are sick and have to attend hospital. If they are on a very low income, they may not be able to travel to the hospital by public transport. This also affects people who visit patients in hospital. Some people can get to the hospital using public transport but there are many others who cannot, particularly those who have mobility problems and have to be driven to the hospital to see a relative. It could be an older person whose husband or wife is in hospital. There is a cost in that. If a person is in hospital for a number of days or weeks, the cost can become quite significant. We have all seen examples of it. People complain to us about it because it adds to the burden of somebody who is sick and of people visiting those who are sick. In my view, it simply is not fair.

I have seen it a number of times when I have visited University Hospital Waterford and St. Luke's General Hospital, Kilkenny. It is very costly. When attending St. Luke's hospital, people can buy a ticket that will, technically, do them for the day. However, if they have to leave for some reason and return in the evening, they have to find a Portakabin where the ticket can be put through a machine to make sure they can leave and come back again. Sometimes nobody is in the Portakabin. People are left hanging around waiting for a person to do this for them. It adds to the inconvenience that visitors and, sometimes, patients are put through.

We are creating a difficult situation for many patients simply because we want to charge people for going to hospital. Deputy Ó Snodaigh gave an example of how we could get around what the Minister of State said might become a difficulty if we make car parking free in hospitals. Some people, depending on where the hospital is located, might use it to park there for other purposes. That is a possibility and we would need to take it into consideration. The vast majority of hospitals are not located in city centres or areas where there are shops and restaurants and so on. They are located mainly around residential facilities. I gave two examples of hospitals. I cannot see why people would park in St. Luke's hospital. There is no benefit in doing that unless they were going to the hospital. It may be more likely in University Hospital Waterford, but I do not believe many people would go to the hospital simply for parking. There may be some hospitals where that may be an issue. I am not sure why people would park at St. James's Hospital for the day unless they were working nearby, then that might be an issue. All hospitals could be gone through and an analysis of them could be done. The way around that is to use the technology that is available.

By way of an example, and I am sure the Minister of State has had to do this as has an Teachta Tóibín, as a Member of the Oireachtas I have to occasionally meet senior management in University Hospital Waterford. When attending, I park my car in the car park and take my ticket. When the meeting concludes, I am offered a ticket that has already been put through a machine that allows me to leave the car park without paying. I discard the ticket I took when coming in and I use the one given to me by the hospital when leaving the car park. I do not always take the ticket. Sometimes, I pay because I want to and do not want to take the ticket. That is a system that could be put in place. It could be linked to visiting a patient whereupon the patient's name is given and the ticket is then validated and the visitor can exit without charge. There are many options we can look at to get around the notion that there may be an abuse of the system. When I hear that, I hear it as an excuse. Yes, it may be a problem, but I would say it is in very few hospitals. I do not believe it is the biggest barrier - pardon the pun - to the lifting of car parking charges; the biggest barrier is the fact that far too many hospitals have become dependent on car parking charges as a funding stream.

If the Minister of State were to abolish car parking charges, hospitals that use the revenue from those charges as part of their overall budget would need that money replaced. The cost of doing it would not be significant in the context of the HSE budget. To abolish the car parking charges, my understanding is that it would cost less than €13 million. I am not saying it is an insignificant sum but in the context of a €22 billion budget in healthcare, it is not significant.

Oireachtas Members collectively made a decision regarding Sláintecare. We have had many lively and robust debates, including the Acting Chair, Deputy Durkan, who, as a member of the Joint Committee on Health, met with senior officials of the Department of Health and the HSE yesterday in regard to commitments in healthcare reforms that were promised. Many of the reforms that were promised are too slow in coming on stream. There is a perception from some that there is a bit of pushback against some of the promised reforms. We promised that we would look at reducing the cost of healthcare, and removing car parking charges is one of those issues.

In addition, I would like prescription charges to be abolished. I would also like further changes to the drugs payment scheme threshold. By the way, I welcome the cut introduced by the Government as part of the cost-of-living measures. The monthly threshold was reduced from €100 to €80, and in last year's budget it was reduced from €120 to €100. We are going in the right direction and I welcome the changes. We still have in-patient charges in hospitals, which can be quite difficult for some payments to pay. There is also the big promise of universal primary care and, in particular, universal GP care. We are a long way away from that happening because we are simply not doing the planning. There is no strategy from the Government as to how to do it. We all agreed we would do it. There was the Sláintecare programme. As is the case in the programme for Government, when car parking charges were agreed to be a part of it, there is no plan on how to deliver it. We are waiting and waiting. I had hoped to hear from the Minister of State that the Government had a plan on how to do this, not excuses as to why it will not do it. I had hoped to hear a plan that sets out what we are going to do. We cannot, forever and a day, offer excuses as to why we cannot do it when we know the consequences can be overcome.

I welcome the fact that Deputy Tóibín has given us an opportunity to have this discussion, to again put this issue on the agenda and to put pressure on the Minister of State and the Government to move on this. Let us do the planning. Let us not come back to this in a year, or two or three, or go into another election where we will make the same promises again regarding healthcare.

People are sick to their back teeth of hearing about reports, promises, reform and all of the things politicians say they will do when it comes to healthcare that do not get done. It erodes confidence and shores up the public's view that these politicians are simply not interested in making changes in healthcare that make life better and easier for patients. When there are simple things like this that can be done, even when there are some consequences that can be worked out, we should do them and send out a clear message to the public, patients and their families that where we can, we will reduce the burden of the cost of healthcare. I have given many examples of where we can do that. One very clear, straightforward start would be to commit the funding and deal with the practicalities to make that difference to patients and their families.

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