The plan to put more than 3,000 new taxis on the streets of Dublin is going ahead despite widespread opposition from many taxi-drivers. Under regulations which came into force yesterday, any existing licence-holders seeking an additional licence can apply from Monday until February 18th.
An ordinary taxi licence will cost £2,500, whereas a wheelchair-accessible licence, at £250, is a tenth of the price. This is to encourage drivers to take on these vehicles, which are considerably more expensive to buy and maintain but extra numbers of which are considered necessary.
However, there may be difficulties in persuading drivers of their merits. "Anyone buying a wheelchair plate under the new system needs to have their head examined," said a current owner of one such vehicle.
He claimed that in two years working for a company which did a lot of hospital work he had picked up one wheelchair fare.
The extra licences are being made available to the 2,600 existing holders to compensate them for the devaluation of their existing plates, which currently trade for tens of thousands of pounds.
There will be 2,600 conventional taxi licences and 500 wheelchair-accessible licences in this batch. Once they have obtained them, licence-holders will be free to sell the additional plates.
Once the existing holders have applied the remaining plates, of which there will be at least 500, will be allocated to "cosies". These are drivers who do not own plates, but rent them from licence-holders.
The time-scale for the application and allocation of these plates has yet to be fixed. Dublin Corporation has a points system for "cosies" waiting for licences, and this will be used to allocate the 500-plus new plates.
Both the Irish Taxi Drivers' Federation and the National Taxi Drivers' Union held mass meetings last week at which members expressed their opposition to the proposals. Both are balloting their members on the proposals on Monday and Tuesday, with the results due on Wednesday.
Over Christmas a pilot taxi-sharing scheme in Dublin was pronounced a success by those who used it.
However, there still were hour-long queues at the main taxi ranks not operating the scheme, even during off-peak times, over the holiday period.
There were three different zones with fares of £3.50, £4.50 and £6.50, depending on the distance from the city centre.
Dublin Corporation appointed marshals to organise the scheme and to identify passengers going to the same areas who could share taxis.