Fine Gael TD for Dublin West, Leo Varadkar, has called on the management of Connolly Hospital to change the pay-and-display parking system which is causing problems for patients and visitors. The pay-and-display car parking system is similar to that used for on-street parking in the City Centre. Drivers have to guess how long they will be in the car-parking and pay upfront. This is causing real problems as patients are often left waiting longer than they had expected for appointments. In some cases, patients have lost their place in the queue while they went out to top up their parking.

‘Connolly is the only hospital that I know that uses a pay-and-display system. Most hospitals in Dublin use a ticket system and require visitors and out-patients to pay the correct amount at the end of their stay. This is a much better system. Obviously, we would all prefer to have free parking but with the hospital budget under pressure that is not possible.’

‘I spoke to the Hospital Manager about it during the week and he acknowledged that the new system was not working and that the hospital would move to a barrier system in future but could not say when. In the mean time the hospital has introduced a €5 tag for half-day parking which should cover most people’