Debate contribution: Hospital Parking Charges Bill: Final Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 7 May 2024.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

7 May 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Hospital Parking Charges Bill: Final Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4487980

Read the official Assembly record

Text

We are where we are. We have got to the Final Stage of the Bill, and I have no doubt that it will progress today. I am disappointed that none of the suggestions that we made about speeding up the process was accepted. The news today is that a company has been appointed to make the installations. That speeds things up. There was an opportunity to implement a process in between times. There are still barriers on all the car parks that are likely to be oversubscribed. Some sort of control system could have been put in while we retrofitted the new technology. The delay of two years is simply too much. The Bill was promised at the time of an election. It is simply not doing what it said that it would do. Patients will be let down as a result, as will staff. Every extra day that they have to pay is one too many. Of course, the general thrust of the Bill was that staff would get free car parking. However, when we get down into the detail, it feels as though that will not be the case; only some staff will get free car parking. There will be a lottery-type system with guidelines. That means that many staff will lose out and will not get access to free parking. Nor will they have the capacity to park at all at their places of work, which will bring significant difficulty for many of them. As a result, I feel that the process has been a shambles. It shows what happens when people try to electioneer a few weeks before an election and curry favour with the electorate by making all sorts of promises. When we get to delivery, however, it works out that, had the groundwork been done properly, we could have been updated on the fact that it was not simple to implement. We can complain about the delays, but it is entirely different to do so and then walk through to vote for those delays. There is an inconsistency there that does not make too much sense. Whilst I kind of appreciate the Minister's predicament, the legislation has been poorly implemented by the Department. That is simply because of the fact that the wrong process was used, which resulted in a judicial review that was upheld. That added a full two-year delay to the implementation of the legislation. Had we run the processes properly, we would not need the two-year delay. I hope that the Minister is able to find out from the Department exactly what caused that and that lessons can be taken so that, when the will of the House is presented to any Department, the officials take it on board and implement it correctly. That will mean that we are not left with such a long delay, because, ultimately, it is the people — those who elect us and whom we serve — who are let down. The delay is too long, and, on the basis of the advice that we were given, implementation could have been done more quickly. On that basis, sadly, we cannot support the delaying Bill today.

529 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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