The car park at the Royal has come under scrutiny

A car park at a Belfast hospital built through private finance made more than �500,000 in 2002, but the NHS only received a fraction of the money.

The finding is contained in a Northern Ireland Audit Office report which said the Royal Group of Hospitals and Queen's University in Belfast got less than 5% of the profit.

Under the original contract, the private finance initiative (PFI) provider agreed to pay the Royal and Queen's �25,000 a year for the use of the land.

A further �15,000 was to be paid annually, after the fourth year of operation, when profits exceeded initial forecasts.

There is something fundamentally wrong when all of this is about public money Patricia McKeown Unison

The profit in 2002 was �570,000 which is more than double what was initially projected, Thursday's report said.

The Audit Office found that a staff dispute over the charges in the new car park at the Royal had affected profits in 1997.

But since the row was resolved, the use of the car park had far exceeded predictions.

Patricia McKeown of the trade union, Unison, which fought the introduction of car park charges, said the public was going to suffer.

"Not only is the private company really raking it in but now the subsidies for people who can least afford to pay are going to be removed," she said.

"They are going to come from the public and they're going to come from staff, but not from the company making the profits.

This is the cheapest and safest parking anywhere in Belfast, William McKee Royal Group of Hospitals

"There is something fundamentally wrong there, when all of this is about public money."

However, William McKee, chief executive of the Royal Group of Hospitals, said the car park was a "great success."

"This is the cheapest and safest parking anywhere in Belfast," he said.

He said up to 15 years ago, car parking at the Royal was "a national scandal" as it was "neither safe nor convenient".

Mr McKee said public money was not available at the time and the private contractor had taken all the risks with the car park.

"Best projections were that activity at the Royal would either stand still or slowly decline," he said.

"The fact that we have one contractor making profits but providing a good car parking service in partnership with us, that will allow us to match car parking needs with the needs of the site through the next decade, is forgotten by people."

The Audit Office report also looked at two other early private finance initiatives in the health service in Northern Ireland.

These were a kidney dialysis unit at Antrim Area Hospital and a heating system at Holywell Hospital in Antrim.