A Fine Gael senator has called for Dublin Airport passengers to be protected against "spiralling" car park charges this summer.
The airport has a €15 per day price cap on their long term parking but there is no limit on their short term car parks as "short term is short term and is meant for people dropping off for short periods of time".
Senator Emer Currie told Newstalk Breakfast that her understanding is that "car parking at the airport is significantly reduced at the moment".
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"We're looking at a 23% reduction on what it normally is - but the daa currently run an operating model for car parking prices based on yield management where demand affects the price," she said.
"We saw this last summer where, in some cases, the prices doubled for car parking. We're seeing record number of passengers travelling through the airport this year.
"At the May Bank Holiday, the car parks were actually full. My question is how are consumers going to be protected by spiralling costs this year?"
In response to the Senator, daa spokesman Graeme McQueen said that airport operates "a dynamic pricing model and that ensures that we can control the demand for the spaces".
"We have a limited number of spaces; there's high demand for that," he said. We want to make sure that anyone who really has to park at Dublin Airport is able to do that and that pricing mechanism allows us to do that".
Senator Currie said that the long-stay car parks, which are capped at €15 per day, are "extremely expensive" compared to other airport car parking in Ireland. She added that "you're looking at, potentially, €82 for a stay in the short-term car park for a weekend".
Mr McQueen said that a reduction price of parking at the airport would result in less options for people. "We have that cap [on long-term car parks], it's €15 a day," he said.
"But if we were to do what the Senator is asking us to do, and bring down the prices, all that would happen there is that the car parks would be booked up quicker and there would be no space at all for those people who do need to park at Dublin Airport this summer."
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