Parking at hospitals for patients receiving cancer treatment should be free of charge or subsidised, the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) has insisted.

It launched a national campaign to highlight this issue last December, which included gathering 3,000 names on a petition. However despite this, no hospital in the country has changed its parking policy for cancer patients.

The ICS noted that during 2016, the revenue raised from parking at all but four cancer hospitals increased. Hospitals that offer cancer treatment raised over €18 million in car parking fees last year, an increase of over €4 million when compared to 2015.

"Patients are telling us that they can't cope with the cost of parking but the hospitals aren't listening. We are overwhelmed by the huge public reaction to our campaign to ‘Park the Charges' for cancer patients. This demonstrates the breadth of support for free parking for people being treated for cancer, something that affects thousands of people every day.

"We want politicians and the HSE to acknowledge the financial impact of hospital parking on families and we need to see real action to address it," commented Donal Buggy of the ICS.

The charity pointed out that individual hospitals have the authority to abolish charges for cancer patients and some hospitals have done this, including Wexford General, Mayo General and St Luke's Rathgar.

It also noted that currently, there is no national policy on hospital car parking, aside from the setting of maximum daily fixed charges.

"This makes no difference to patients forking out €15, €20 or even €40 for a day long stay. The HSE now needs to step up and put in place a policy that supports cancer patients and their families at a time when they're faced with a multitude of other charges," Mr Buggy said.

The ICS has written to all city and county councillors asking them to bring forward motions at their next council meetings, calling on their local hospitals to introduce free parking for cancer patients.

"This will need cross-party support and we're asking politicians from all parties to get behind the initiative. We're also asking the public to get involved by supporting a petition to ‘Park the Charges' and to raise this issue with their local representatives," Mr Buggy said.

The ICS added that it hopes the HSE will meet with it to discuss its proposals ‘in the very near future'.

For full details on this campaign and to sign the petition, click here