A challenge to restrictions on the issuing of hackney car licences in Dundalk was initiated in the High Court yesterday.
Mr Justice Lavan gave leave to Mr John Dillon, Mountain Court, Point Road, Dundalk, to take proceedings by way of judicial review against Dundalk Urban District Council, the Minister for the Environment, Ireland and the Attorney General.
Mr Gerard Hogan SC, for Mr Dillon, read an affidavit in which his client complained of the council's decision to restrict hackney licences by quota and a policy not to increase hackney numbers. Mr Dillon said he depended on hackney car driving to earn a proper livelihood. His wife was also qualified to drive a hackney car and they hoped to develop their own hackney business. Public transport in the area was very limited, apart from 20 taxi and 50 hackney plates licensed by the council, he said. Dundalk's population was 50,000 people and he held that the number of public service vehicle licences in operation was insufficient to meet the townspeople's needs. Without an adequate bus service there was an unmet market need for additional plates, he said.
Mr Dillon argued that the common good was not served by any embargo on increasing the number of plates. He thought that some of the issued licences were being held to depress the market forces. Mr Dillon said he was a qualified hackney car driver and held a PSV licence since 1994. He had been employed as a hackney car driver since 1995. He suffered from asthma and arthritis and had been advised many types of work were unsuitable to his condition. He said hackney car driving was particularly suitable, as driving gave him an opportunity to stretch his limbs and exercise periodically.
The National Rehabilitation Board considered his case to be exceptional and had written on his behalf to the Department of Social Welfare to request that he could continue to receive his invalidity pension and work as a hackney driver, as hackney driving was of therapeutic benefit to him.
Mr Dillon said that when he applied to the UDC for a licence last year he was told it had decided last September not to increase the number of hackney licences in the area and that his application would not be considered.
It was his belief that the UDC's refusal to regulate properly the licensing of public service vehicles in the Dundalk area had directly resulted in people engaging in the business unlawfully without proper insurance because it had been impossible for them to obtain insurance.