By Joleen Murphy
The HSE received over €5.2 million in income from its public hospital car parks last year.
Nearly 1.3 million was collected in Cork University Hospital.
These new figures have been released under the Freedom of Information Act.
The show the total income from parking and clamping charges in 23 HSE hospitals last year was just over 5.2 million euro.
The highest was €1.291 million in Cork University Hospital.
University College Hospital Galway was the next highest, at €630,000.
€469,000 was taken in at University Hospital Waterford.
Sinn Féin's health spokesman, David Cullinane, says these charges should be abolished.
"We feel that it adds to the burden of people who are sick, who are patients going to hospital who are being treated in hospital.
"We know some people because of the illness that they have, they have to attend hospital several times a day and obviously the cost of car parking can add to the cost of being sick.
"Because of all of those reasons we believe all car parking charges should be abolished in hospitals."
A total of six other hospitals also collected over €200,000 in car parking charges last year.
Image by Manfred Richter from Pixabay
