A State-funded advisory body on racism has condemned a website aimed at taxi drivers in Ireland for carrying offensive and racist material relating to immigrants in Ireland.
The National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI) has called for the forum section of the website, www.taxi.ie, to be closed down and for all racist comments to be removed.
Yesterday the forum, which has 500 registered users, carried dozens of racist entries and jokes targeting a range of minority groups including black people, Romanians and Travellers.
The website, which says it is an independent not-for-profit forum for the taxi industry in Ireland, did not respond to queries from The Irish Times yesterday. It describes itself as an initiative funded through advertising and the sponsorship of private individuals.
However, by yesterday evening it had begun to remove most of the racist material. It also sent a message to users warning them that the forum section was in danger of closing down if etiquette was not maintained with respect to racism.
Philip Watt of the NCCRI said the comments, together with complaints from members of the public regarding racism among taxi drivers, were a cause for concern.
"We are certain that many taxi drivers and bodies representing the industry would wish to disassociate themselves from the comments on the website," he said.
"However, we have had reports about taxi drivers openly speaking to customers using explicit racist language, and of taxi drivers encouraging customers not to use cars driven by black drivers. We even had a visitor from the UN's anti-racism committee experience some of this when he visited the country last year.
"We don't want to tar all drivers with the same brush, but this kind of conduct can send out a very negative impression of the taxi industry. We will be writing to the Commission for Taxi Regulation, drawing attention to the need for anti-racism awareness training."
The commission took over responsibility for dealing with complaints against taxi drivers towards the end of last year. Initial indications are that conduct of drivers accounted for a significant number of complaints, although the majority relate to alleged overcharging.
The NCCRI, which maintains a database of racist incidents, says it has recorded seven incidents relating to taxi services. Most relate to issues such as a lack of access by minority ethnic groups to taxi services; racist incidents involving taxi drivers; and racism directed at drivers from minority ethnic groups.
On the issue of access to taxis, it has recorded numerous instances of members of the Traveller community being refused taxis. It says Traveller organisations have also noted difficulties in accessing a service where a person lives on a halting site or group housing scheme.
In a submission to the commission last year, the NCCRI recommended a number of measures to address racism in the industry. They included:
• Funding better research to determine the level of racism and discrimination in the industry;
• Promoting anti-racism awareness training among taxi service providers;
• Developing a code of conduct in conjunction with taxi drivers, which could be displayed in taxis with contact information if a passenger wishes to make a complaint;
• Ensuring that any quality assurance procedures for the industry include a specific reference to anti-racism.