EuroPark profiting off hospitals?

People say there's a City/Dublin bias in this country.

Kind of hard to argue otherwise then you move services to Dublin, and want to make it hard for people not beside them to access them.

Hospital worker here. During the pandemic we could park in the hospital. Yesterday euro car parks started charging again so it's back to early mornings, parking miles away and getting the shuttle bus in and out adding another hour to my already long day (12 hour shifts) all to profiteer.

In recent years the people I'm bringing to hospital have limited mobility, or its something that needs timely intervention. Most of the alternatives aren't an option. A taxi is just a more expensive way of using a car. I go to work on public transport and cycling. I know what its involved.

Its facile calling it storage, or arguing about payment. When the reality is they mostly don't police the parking anyway. You'll often rock up the Mater one and it will be full with people not going to the hospital at all. Likewise that space is a premium when they are wasteful with it. Its disingenuous.

When I switched from the train and bike back to the car, it was because the commute was taking too long didn't facilitate the other stops I had to do in the evenings. Which wasn't an issue when I had no other commitments. I could take as much time as I like. But things change.

It really looks like you're being deliberately obtuse, trying to spread confusion. But just in case you are genuinely confused, let's clarify the two different scenarios that you are mixing up.

1) Current scenario - people pay for parking - generates some income for the hospital, with the benefits going to all hospital users.

2) Scenario proposed by many on this thread - parking is free or highly subsidised, with significant capital investment going into upgrading parking control systems - this is the scenario where motorists are subsidised and prioritised over other hospital users.

I didn't say that the space would be better used for something else. I said that using it for parking creates an opportunity cost, an opportunity to generate other income that is being missed. That's a simple fact. It doesn't say that it SHOULD be used for something else. Please stop trying to confuse things.

Eh, there are hospitals outside Dublin, just ICYMI.

Except the Russians haven't invaded hospitals of their car parks, so the Ukraine isn't really relevant here. I've been pointing out that not everyone drives for over a week, and your magnanimous gesture is that you won't object to some facility for non-driving hospital users. It doesn't give you any credibility to pretend that you're really considering the needs of non-driving hospital users.

You've gone from 'vast profits' for Europark to 'obviously some profit'. Which is it? And yes, I DO want to you provide links to Europark articles that show that they made vast profits from hospital car parks. Most private businesses don't provide breakdowns of their profits, so I'll be very surprised if you find any such articles.

Who do you think should pay for your parking? What equivalent perk should your non-driving colleagues get?

Do I need to explain to you for a third time about the different cost structures of public service staff vs outsourced staff?

A taxi doesn't require parking at the destination. That's a key difference.

Parking IS storage. That's what it is - storage of the private property of some people.

Pure strawman argument - no-one is suggesting closing all car parks. People can continue to drive. They just have to pay for storage of their private property at the destination.

Oh, you're an idiot.

Wat perk should they get? Is the perk of being able to cycle, walk, scooter or bus their way into work enough. I mean they don't have to pay to park their scooter or bicycle.

You keep saying "storage" instead of parking. Parking is an amenity. Granted it's not a right. But the whole point of the thread is that's it's a bit sh1tty to have to pay for it.

You must be in the Lycra brigade or the Gretta camp.

You're not posting links because you know well there are no articles that tell you what profit margins Europark are making on hospital car parking. You can say what you like about their costs, but it is entirely meaningless unless you put their income right up there beside it. Be honest, you know nothing about the levels of profit made, so you should really stop basing any conclusions on figures that you don't actually know.

Children aren't car parks. The State makes a decision to fund a very small part of the costs involved in raising a child, mainly because we have a vested interest in having more children grow into adults who will pay taxes into the future to fund our retirements. We could have a long debate as to whether this should be a universal benefit or not, but would really be taking things way off topic.

What is this 'gaping hole'? Why should people who can't afford a car share the costs of providing parking for those who can afford a car?

There is no public information on Europark that supports your claims of vast profits or huge profits or any profits. No private company is going to publish detailed financial information like this.

You and I both know that you have no information on the profitability of this business for Europark or others that operate these services. You have no idea of their profit margins. If they are 'cleaning up', why aren't their competitors coming in at a slightly lower price to take the business off them? Hell, if there's vast profits to be made, why aren't you setting up your own parking management company to swoop in and take the business off them?

You have no information about the profitability of this business, so any conclusions you make about profitability are your own imagination.

Please don't make me explain to you for a fourth time that public sector staff operating car parks would have much higher costs than outsourced staff.

Perhaps you haven't worked it out yet, but there are benefits for everyone in getting more people cycling, including reduced traffic jams, reduced healthcare costs, reduced pollution, reduced traffic chaos. That's why governments around the world are encouraging and incentivising cycling, in some cases actually paying cyclists to cycle. That's why it make sense for governments to fund cycle facilities, as they are doing in Paris, as they are doing in Barcelona, as they are doing in New York, and many other places around the world.

This thread is an unsalvageable mess.