Mr. David McGuinness:

The SGS issues the taxi licence. It is a Swedish company, SGS Ireland. There was huge concern within the industry about the nine year rule, but the change whereby people licensed before 1 January this year are allowed operate their cars for up to 14 years has removed a good deal of pressure. However, there is an issue for people who have to change their vehicles. There is no access to credit from the institutions. The money that is given to the National Transport Authority probably could be used to give low-cost loans to taxi drivers. The drivers' credit rating has probably been ruined over the last few years, as has happened to many people in the country, so they have no options. The money that is received by the National Transport Authority from taxi drivers could probably be used to fund some of the vehicles that need to be changed.

There is a big issue coming down the tracks with regard to wheelchair accessible vehicles. Many of those vehicles were acquired ten to 15 years ago, when the separate wheelchair licences were introduced, and they are now reaching the end of their lives. To put a new wheelchair accessible vehicle on the road costs €40,000 to €50,000. Labour Party policy was that the taxi fleet should be 100% wheelchair accessible by 2020. In the last three years the percentage of wheelchair accessible vehicles went down from 8.6% to 4.3% of the fleet. That will deteriorate further over the next year because many of those vehicles that entered the taxi fleet are coming to the end of their lives. Originally, the wheelchair accessible taxis were to be exempt from the nine and 14 year rules. It was to be the end of life of the vehicle. However, that has been changed, so that will further deplete the fleet of wheelchair accessible vehicles.

Regarding the oversupply in the industry, initially we had a meeting with the Minister of State, Deputy Alan Kelly, in his office. He indicated that the industry needed separate regulations for urban and rural areas. That did not appear in the review body recommendations. On the issue of PAYE workers - and we can only talk about the people we represent - our evidence is that at weekends the people who have a job and an income are destroying our members' livelihoods. According to the last available figure, there were 6,500 PAYE workers with taxi licences. If this issue was tackled in dealing with the overall problem within the industry perhaps people from rural areas might get into the industry, because it would be sustainable if firemen, council workers or whoever else were not operating taxis in rural areas.