Transport For Disabled

Sir, - Cork's city fathers have recently issued several new taxi plates and, by insisting that the new vehicles be accessible…

Sir, - Cork's city fathers have recently issued several new taxi plates and, by insisting that the new vehicles be accessible to physically disabled people, they consider they have acted properly. However, as documented at length on RTE's Pat Kenny programme, the experience in Dublin of a similar system is that disabled passengers cannot avail of the service as taxi operators are reluctant to deal with the extra work of loading and unloading wheelchairs and give preference to able-bodied passengers.

We in Cork have been fortunate in having a fleet of three specially adapted minibuses operated by a hackney company exclusively for disabled people. This service has been the only means of public transport for the physically disabled as, incredibly, our heavily subsidised national bus transport fleet is totally inaccessible. However, this existing service was not issued with a taxi-plate and will cease operations in April.

We will then have the incomprehensible situation that those who are most in need of transport will, because of a decision of the corporation, be deprived of their only mode of public transport.

Obviously this is inadvertent discrimination against a vulnerable minority, but the situation must be remedied immediately. A sense of fair play and reason must prevail. - Yours, etc., JOSEPH LEAKE,

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Maryborough Hill, Douglas, Cork.