Rally at Dail follows drive through Dublin to highlight problems in industry
Taxi drivers who demonstrated in Dublin yesterday plan further protests unless the Government freezes the issuing of new licences.
They drove 480 taxis through Dublin city centre yesterday afternoon before staging a rally outside Leinster House to highlight problems in the industry.
Drivers, they claimed, were struggling to make a living since deregulation of the sector in November 2000, which has led to taxi numbers in the city increasing from 3,000 to almost 10,000.
Their immediate demand is for the issuing of taxi licences to be suspended until a regulator for the industry has been appointed.
This was immediately rejected by the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, who said drivers knew that deregulation had come about as a result of a High Court decision and the Government was bound by this.
Mr Brennan, who announced that the Cabinet had yesterday approved the draft of the Taxi Regulation Bill, said he understood the drivers' frustration and anger.
The Bill, he said, would be published in the next fortnight and be introduced in the Dáil before the summer recess.
It would provide for the appointment of a full-time taxi regulator who would oversee standards and entry requirements to the industry.
Taxi union leaders claim that hundreds of people with criminal records have been issued with taxi plates since the industry was deregulated.
Their campaign, they say, is as much about public safety as concern over drivers' living standards.
Mr Brennan, however, said applicants for taxi licences were vetted by the Garda and he assumed that no one with a criminal record was approved.
While some of those turned down had successfully appealed to the courts, he did not believe the problem was widespread.
The Minister said he agreed with the taxi unions that "good, strong entry standards", including specialised courses, were required before people could become "fully fledged, professional" taxi drivers.
Advertisements for the post of regulator would be placed in newspapers next week and the office should be up and running within a few months of that, he added.
This pace of change is not acceptable to the unions which organised yesterday's protest, the National Taxi Drivers' Union, the Irish Taxi Drivers' Federation and SIPTU.
In a letter handed in to Mr Brennan yesterday, the NTDU vice-president, Mr Vincent Kearns, said the Taoiseach had given an undertaking prior to the general election last year that a regular would be appointed within weeks.
Mr Kearns told reporters that the next demonstration, in the absence of a moratorium on new licences, would take place on July 8th. Gardaí estimated that about 1,000 drivers took part in yesterday's protest, which began when drivers assembled in the Phoenix Park. The protest was accompanied by a 24-hour withdrawal of services in the capital, which was due to end at 4 a.m. today.
While nationwide protests had been planned, gardaí in Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford said the taxi service operated normally throughout yesterday in those cities.