Mr. Hugh Creegan:

It would be hard to pick up somebody in a wheelchair if the taxi is not wheelchair-accessible. We are aware of the possibility that people may get these vehicles and perhaps not use them for their intended purpose. It is in the regulations that priority is meant to be given to bookings for wheelchair-accessible vehicles, and that is something we can police to a certain extent, although I do not want to present the picture that we can police it totally. If we become aware of people not giving any bookings to wheelchair-accessible vehicles, we can deal with the issue. The core issue is that if the vehicle does not exist in the fleet, a person cannot be picked up. I would prefer to deal with the previous problem rather than not having enough suitable vehicles in the fleet.

The Deputy referred to regulatory changes. The taxi regulation review report adopted by the Government at the start of 2012 set an age limit for vehicles in the longer term of not more than nine years but allowed that existing vehicles in the fleet could operate for up to 15 years. That position was reached as part of the process we went through and it was adopted in the report and introduced to use approximately 18 months ago. A number of wheelchair-accessible vehicles were reaching the age limit and when that happened, people had the choice to replace the vehicle with another wheelchair-accessible vehicle and licence or buy a second-hand taxi licence with a standard saloon car. The truth is it is much more expensive to provide larger wheelchair-accessible vehicles, so many people exited the wheelchair-accessible market and bought standard licences and vehicles. In order to stem the tide of people dropping out of the industry, we provided a band aid in removing the age limit. We would then try to remedy the issue by way of regulations.

The vehicles in question are top class, with type approval and meeting all safety standards. They are used across the UK in a myriad of jurisdictions, as I checked before coming here. There are different licensing authorities across the UK and 119 of them use the type of vehicle that we are proposing for use here. I can understand some of the concerns of the industry if we consider the bigger picture and see there is a massive problem in the insufficient number of wheelchair-accessible vehicles. It would be inappropriate if we did not allow this type of vehicle in common use elsewhere and say they were not suitable for Ireland. We have mentioned the taxi advisory committee and it had a demonstration of a model. It was recognised that this is a modern vehicle capable of carrying people very easily, successfully and safely. As the vehicle is in wide use, it is perfectly suitable for use here, and there is no rational reason it is not suitable for Ireland.

The Deputy mentioned the three-year and six-year limits.

With regard to buying a new wheelchair accessible licence, there has been no three year rule in existence for a number of years. In fact, if one buys a new wheelchair accessible licence now, one is allowed to put a vehicle up to ten years of age on that licence, so there is no three year age rule for wheelchair accessible vehicles. There is for people who are transferring certain taxis, but that is not what the Deputy is referring to in this case. We still want to get a degree of quality in the industry so we have proposed a six year maximum age at the point of entry in the draft regulations. We are coming down from the current situation, which is larger vehicle only but it can be up to ten years of age, to the proposed situation which is large and medium-sized vehicles - I would not call them small - but the vehicles should be less than six years of age at the point when one gets the new licence.

In the report regarding the over-supply in the industry and the provision of information on wages and income performance, as part of a taxi fare review in 2012 we carried out surveys and published them. They indicated fare income levels. We will carry out another fare review this year and conduct the same survey. We will try to capture some indication of the income level and we will happily publish that as well.

In terms of the dormant and inactive licences and the reduction from five years to one year, in the past people could let their licence lapse and reactivate it within five years. Again, the taxi regulation review report which was adopted by the Government contained a recommendation to reduce the five year period to a one year period, so we are merely reflecting the outcome of that process.

On the advertising on vehicles, we proposed in the draft regulations that there would be a prohibition on advertising. At present, there are no controls on advertising and we get complaints, particularly about electronic signs at the back of vehicles because people travelling behind them get distracted or blinded by those signs. We are coming from a situation where there are no controls and we proposed initially that there should be a total prohibition but we think, on reflection, that the position is some place in the middle. We will be proposing to our board is that we would preclude the use of the electronic signs, about which we have received complaints as they cause problems, preclude the use of advertising on the front doors of the vehicle, because we have just branded them with the signage one sees on the front doors, and so we can monitor the industry we would preclude the use of advertising that has discriminatory or racist content - that is not a problem but it just gives us a tool whereby if there was a problem we could deal with it - but after that we recognise that the current position we adopted is not correct. We will be proposing that advertising continues to be allowed in vehicles, subject to the limitations I outlined.