Group says plan to make all city taxis wheelchair-accessible will not be met

A PROMISE in the programme for government that all city-based taxis would be wheelchair-accessible by 2010 will not be met, and the best that people with disabilities may hope for is a target of 20 per cent nationally.

That is the opinion of the Accessible Taxi Consortium, a coalition of support groups for people with disabilities, which said the percentage of wheelchair-accessible taxis fell from about 20 per cent a decade ago to about 5 per cent now.

In a submission to the Oireachtas Committee on Transport, members of the consortium called for urgent changes to rules governing accessible taxis, including tax reliefs to encourage drivers to opt for wheelchair-accessible vehicles

The committee heard the costs of setting up an accessible taxi were so prohibitive that there was a danger there would be a dearth of such taxis within a few years, particularly in rural areas, instead of targets being met.

Michael Doyle of the Irish Wheelchair Association called for tax relief up to a maximum of €15,875 for operators purchasing wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

He said public contracts such as health service contracts for patient transport should only be awarded to accessible taxi owners – and he asked that the reduced licence fee, €125 as opposed to €6,300, be retained for accessible vehicles. Tony Maher of the consortium told the committee that take-up of wheelchair-accessible licences was so low that in some rural areas, they were virtually non-existent. He said in Tipperary there were just four such taxis, while in Cavan and Monaghan there were about 10 to 12. They could find none in Clare.

Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan, who supports the group, called for a meeting with the Minister for Finance before the budget.