Debate contribution: Hospital Parking Charges Bill: Final Stage

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 20 April 2026.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

20 April 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Hospital Parking Charges Bill: Final Stage

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5494063

Read the official Assembly record

Text

If you look up "hames" in the dictionary, you will see a picture of this Bill and an account of how it has been handled by this Minister, the previous Minister and the Executive as a whole. From the start of the process, those who could have availed themselves of free parking have been messed about, taken for granted and made mugs of by the Assembly. They were promised free parking at hospitals, but one of the first things to be done by the Assembly when it was reconvened was the reversal of that decision. It seems like patients and health workers are only good when it comes to photo ops for Executive parties in the Building. In previous debates, the Department talked about public transport for healthcare appointments and people using public transport for healthcare appointments. To use words that the Minister used in response to me in the question for urgent oral answer, "in an ideal world", it would be wonderful to see people use public transport, and they should, if they can. I remind the House that, just a few moments ago, the House backed a piece of legislation that will charge people to apply for their SmartPasses. It is a contradiction and a sign of one hand not knowing what the other is doing. It is also the case that there is insufficient, to put it mildly, public transport provision in many areas of the North, never mind the fact that people who have cancer are being told that they have to get a bus or train. Do we expect people with cancer and other serious ailments, diseases and illnesses to sit on a bus or train? To be frank, that is disgusting. The Minister talked about the Bill not being about reversing the original decision that was made in 2022. That is exactly what the Bill is doing. It is reversing the original decision. Young Lives vs Cancer corresponded with me and, I am sure, others, ahead of the debate. It said that, on average, families in which there are young people with cancer are paying £700 every month. If the Minister has the power to reduce that cost, he should go ahead and do that speedily. However, he is doing the opposite: he is lumping an extra payment on to those families. Even for that sole reason, Members should vote against the Bill today. Waiting for free parking at hospitals to come through from the Assembly will be like 'Waiting for Godot'. It will never come, especially if we pass the Bill today.

We hear a lot of talk about people working together, non-silo mentalities and all those kind of buzzwords. Hundreds of millions of pounds were spent on Grand Central station, which opened one or two years ago. To my knowledge, there were no extra bus transport services put in place for people to get to those hospitals and healthcare sites. I am happy to be corrected on that, but I do not believe so. Therefore, although there is all this talk about using public transport, the investment is not being put in place at all. The Minister talked about finance and said that it has been a financial issue. At least he is being honest, I suppose, but I would throw that back and challenge him by saying that trusts have spent £60 million on private ambulance services over the past five years, and the Department, through the trusts, is spending hundreds of millions of pounds every year on private healthcare as well. Money can be found when it is needed, and it should be found in this case. The Minister usually refers to England in debates, usually to say that things are bad in England so we should be less angry about things being bad here. However, I will let the Minister know — I am sure that he knows this already — that, in England, there is a £10 million travel fund for people with cancer, but there is no suggestion of anything like that being put in place here. In conclusion, I ask the Minister, through the Speaker, this question: was there a vote at the Executive on this? There has been some back and forth between Sinn Féin and the SDLP, but I presume that this went through by consensus at the Executive, and I presume that the Executive parties supported it. I also remind Members that MLAs still get free parking at this Building while we are telling other people to pay for parking outside their place of work. The leader of the Opposition talked about transparency. Indeed, I am all for that. I remind him that his party had the chance to vote against accelerated passage of the Bill but refused to do so.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:26 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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