The recent High Court decision by Mr Justice Murphy upholding the hackney drivers' appeal against Mr Robert Molloy's plan to issue a second taxi licence to all existing plate-holders could, pending any appeal to the Supreme Court, open the door to a nationwide deregulation of the taxi industry. In theory, anyone with an average-sized family car will be able to apply for and receive a taxi licence from the local authorities.
As a taxi-driver in Dublin for the past six years, I fear for the future, not only of the taxi business but also for my and my family's future should deregulation become a reality. I am not alone: the taxi industry gives full-time employment to approximately 5,000 drivers in Dublin.
If the supporters of deregulation are to be believed, it is the panacea to cure all ills and will result in taxis being available on demand on a 24-hour basis. How this viewpoint has gained credence is a bit of a mystery as it is not supported by the evidence from other cities worldwide which have deregulated their taxi industry.
In deregulated systems it has been found that, due to ease of entry, thousands of people take up part-time taxi-driving to supplement their incomes. Their full-time jobs, naturally, take precedence and so they cherrypick the days and hours they work, leading to a huge unpredictability in the numbers of taxis available.
Many part-time drivers work during November, for instance, to earn extra cash for Christmas but then are conspicuous by their absence in December. This is because of work and family commitments, or simply because they do not wish to use their leisure time driving a taxi during the festive period.
The inevitable decline in the incomes of full-time drivers, and a huge increase in the hours they must work to earn a decent living, lead to many of the better-skilled people leaving the trade for more profitable employment. Taxi-driving very quickly becomes a part-time profession, and both the continuity and quality of service, and also the average skill level of the drivers, drop dramatically.
In a deregulated regime, and with more lucrative employment available almost on demand, very few Irish people will be willing to work as taxi-drivers for breadline wages. Cruising the now extremely dangerous streets of Dublin late at night, in perpetual fear of attack and for marginal and uncertain earnings, will hardly rate highly in most people's preferred employment options.
In many other cities deregulation has led to criminals becoming involved in the taxi trade, and there is no guarantee this would not happen in Dublin. A cash-rich business is an ideal way for a drug-dealer, for example, to launder his ill-gotten gains. Territory or turf wars are not uncommon. Small, independent operators are forced out of the business by intimidation and threats of violence.
ON A MORE personal level, deregulation of the industry would be inherently unjust to the hundreds of ordinary decent taxi-drivers (myself included) who invested up to £90,000 in purchasing their licences. In most cases, the finance has been raised through remortgaging the family home and by the investment of redundancy payments and life savings.
To these drivers deregulation is their worst nightmare. At the stroke of a politician's pen the value of the investment they made in good faith will be wiped out.
Many retired taxi men and taxi men's widows who rent out their licences to supplement their State pensions also face financial disaster.
The Government and local authorities placed an implicit value on a taxi licence by charging about £30,000 for the purchase of a new wheelchair-accessible vehicle in the recent issue of new licences from 1997 to 1999. They accepted, sanctioned and condoned the sale, rent and transfer of taxi licences over a 22-year period since 1978. If they now try to force through deregulation they will invite literally thousands of claims for compensation from individual drivers.
No one, least of all the taxi-drivers, denies the urgent need for a radical revamp of the taxi trade, and for more taxis on the streets of our vibrant and growing capital. What is at issue here is how best to achieve this entirely laudable goal.
To single out the taxi trade in isolation is to ignore the overall problems of the public transport system. The bus and DART services must play a far larger role in servicing the needs of the travelling public and stop abdicating their responsibility.
Now is the time for the Taoiseach to sit down with all interested parties and devise a sensible solution to this problem which is acceptable to all.
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