Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Creegan for his input. I have raised an awful lot of issues and I ask everyone to bear with me if I repeat them because they are issues that I am still not fully satisfied with.

I have always believed that single taxi drivers did not get proper representation on the taxi advisory group. I have argued the matter with the Minister and the National Transport Authority that the multiple taxi drivers had more of an input and that bit was missing.

The local area hackney licence is the second hackney licence that we hope to bring in. Local authorities will have an input and potential hackney drivers must undertake a specific test that comprises knowledge of the area and what it entails. I would like to hear more about the new scheme. It will impact on other hackneys and taxis in certain areas. I accept that the new scheme is very specific but I fear that its introduction will have an adverse affect.

With regard to the issues of pooling, its legality and insurance issues, the Minister has flagged the issue on a number of occasions. Is a driver acting outside of the remit of pooling if he or she picks up people while pooling? Perhaps people have to assemble at one spot before they can be picked up. I would like Mr. Creegan to elaborate on the matter.

I am still baffled about applications where an operator can type in the number of another vehicle and remove a name. That seems to me to be a huge security breach. The matter has been dismissed even though the authority knew there was a problem. It does not make sense that a name can be removed. I do not have the answer and I am not satisfied with the answer supplied that the problem is acceptable and we knew it was going to happen.

Will a grant be provided for the purchase of disabled vehicles? We know that there are three types of vehicles being considered by the authority, they are the same as the ones in the UK and the entrance is from the back.

Recently I learned of an issue with a family where they could not get down the path and had to go up the road, half a mile, to get onto the road and access a vehicle. How can we deal with entrances now being located at the back? I have been led to believe that the entrances will be at the back. I assume that money will be made available to provide ramps or something. Maybe it will come out of the money the NTA accumulates on an ongoing basis. The local authority will not have the resources, unless it is provided with resources, to dig paths for people in these situations. It will become very difficult. A makeshift system is not good enough.

The Minister referred to 600 people with criminal convictions in the industry. It was a bad remark and I do not know whether the NTA had any input. Making a remark like that without backing it up worries consumers and people who were going to use taxis. It was inappropriate.

With regard to money raised from licences, money was transferred to the NTA when this started off. Some of it has been used. What will we do? We know about the issue of the rank in O'Connell Street with the works that will take place there. It looks like there will be more spaces, as the NTA says, but that they will not be on O'Connell Street. We must have a proper, accessible situation in O'Connell Street. The Gresham Hotel rank has been there for years and is the most widely used. There must be a solution and we cannot have all other vehicles going up and down O'Connell Street as well as a place to get a taxi. People must go down a side street and they will not be prepared to do so. I know that from my experience. Perhaps the rank can be brought around the corner so that people can queue and taxis can come around the corner onto O'Connell Street. There is some sense in that idea but there must be some solution with local authorities. When works are completed, we still will not have access.

The licence period reduced from five years to one year. In one case, a taxi man had a car crash. The case has been settled and the man has received no money. He has waited over one year and has now been told that he will lose his licence. There is no mechanism to deal with it. It is absurd. I do not know the answer because I keep receiving the same stark answer that the person will lose his licence. Perhaps the witnesses can tell me how to deal with it.

The retrospective aspect of licences was raised earlier. Some licences were going to different cars to reactivate the licences. I would like to hear comments on this. An analysis was supposed to be done on the economic reality of making people aware of the cost to the industry. Has the analysis been done and is it available? Many people entering industry do not know that there have been additional costs and rules added. The analysis was supposed to be done and I am not sure whether it has been brought forward yet.

Are there additional enforcement officers? Will there be contracts for them and do we know who will avail of the contracts? Where will the enforcement officers come from?

A vetting Bill will come before the Houses and I assume we will need to lay down rules. I am not saying I agree with rules but in Spain drivers must be citizens. In other countries, there are different rules. We must have something more steady. We can check the backgrounds of EU nationals but there in other areas throughout the world we cannot check people's backgrounds for a variety of reasons. We must have clearer indicators on that point. I would like to hear the view of the witnesses on this.

Is it still the case that people have taxi plates just to use bus lanes and are not actively using the vehicle as a taxi? Are we examining such people and taking licences from them? In the past, criminals got taxi licences just to use bus lanes. I would like to hear some comment on this.

When someone flags down a taxi, the taxi will pull up but the driver may be told taxis cannot pull up in certain places, such as bus lanes. There is a possibility of prosecuting people but there must be some flexibility. There is talk of CCTV being used in evidence against people in these cases. This is very unfair to taxi people, who must drive around the city waiting to collect fares. We have the issue of people driving around and there must be some flexibility by not applying penalty points or fines in those situations.