A parking space in an office or apartment takes as much space and costs as much to build as a bed space. This is one of the biggest reason why building new housing is so expensive and if each bedroom gets a parking space, 50% of my rent payment goes to pay for parking. The cost of free parking is also added to the cost of everything else sold, make or done everywhere there is parking.

Some people may actually be willing to pay this much for parking but most wouldn't if given the choice and more can't afford to and are pushed into homelessness while thousands of unwanted parking spaces paid for by residents in apartment blocks are rented out at a pittance by developers to commuters.

I do not drive and therefore shouldn't be forced to pay for other peoples parking. Cork city is ahead of the curb in identifying this as a problem that leads to homelessness and hurts our competitiveness. I support the proposals in the draft city development plan to "decouple" parking and housing by requiring parking to be built and sold separately from housing in some New docklands developments. This is a world-leading proposal which we need to support and call for it to be made policy all over the city.