Dublin taxi-drivers will hold a mass meeting next week to decide their response to the Government's plan to introduce 3,100 new taxi plates in the capital.
Feelings were running high following the refusal of the Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Bobby Molloy, to back down on the proposals when he met a delegation of drivers on Tuesday.
"The feedback we are getting at the moment is that the men are very militant," the president of the Irish Taxi Drivers Federation, Mr John Ussher, said. "They want to go down to the Custom House and let off steam."
The federation and the National Taxi Drivers Union of Ireland will hold a series of meetings with elected representatives over the next three or four days. A mass meeting of the group's 4,000 members will then be arranged for next week.
"We want to give them time to let the decision sink in and then sit down and talk about it sanely," Mr Ussher said. "Whatever the members decide will then be acted on."
Mr Ussher said his members were disappointed with the tough stance taken by Mr Molloy at this week's meeting. They pointed out that while the Government had agreed to issue 3,100 taxi licences in Dublin, it did not have to issue them all this year. They favoured a phased introduction of the plates.
The Department of the Environment insists that the issuing of licences will begin promptly by Easter. The drivers' organisations have warned that this would mean financial ruin for many members.
Although 2,600 of the 3,100 new licences have been offered to existing plate-holders, the taxi-drivers have claimed they would have difficulty finding staff to drive cars using a second plate.