Mr. Gerry Murphy:

To go to the heart of this issue the way that the Taxi Regulation Act 2003 was set up the market is open, subject to certain regulatory controls. Since 2009 when a rule was introduced that people could get only wheelchair-accessible licences because there was a big gap in the provision of wheelchair-accessible taxis there has been a big drop in numbers coming into the sector. For example, in 2011 there were approximately 80 licences issued and they were broadly for wheelchair-accessible taxis and in 2012 there were only 44 licences issued. Very few licences are being issued because they are restricted to wheelchair-accessible taxis and it costs more to provide those.