Car parking charges at Merlin Park Hospital are here to stay, Health Forum is told

The recent introduction of car parking charges at Merlin Park Hospital in Galway will be made permanent, members of the HSE West Forum have been told.

Galway councillor Shane Forde raised the issue at the February meeting of the forum where he told management: “This should have been put before us first for discussion. I ask you to think about this decision again. The amount of money taken in will be minimal, and we should wait until outpatient building and additional car parks are all complete before implementing any paid parking. I know every private and public hospital now has paid parking charges and it is the way of creating revenue but I ask that you would not do that here, or at the very least, cap it as a minimum of €5 a day."

Integrated Health Area Manager Ann Cosgrove said the charges were the same as applied at Univesity Hospital Galway (UHG) and there were caps on daily rates.

 “Part of having this pay and display is to secure and keep the spaces for people coming for appointments. Merlin Park is a busy site, there are a lot of building works and also we now have more staff coming due to the transfer of services there."

She added that the bus shuttle service in place from UHG to Merlin Park was really “a park and ride for staff" and not really available for public use.

Cllr Forde replied that the whole situation was “infuriating people who use this hospital every day for their appointments”, to which Ms Cosgrove replied: “They are the same people who have been accessing the services when they were at UHG, where parking charges already apply. We are not trying to penalise anybody.”